January 39,1919 
®ljr (intarin 
IWaalitngtmt. ®. (B. 
n ear Will: 
I mailed fche last of the mss.to you yesterday in roll which I trust 
will reach you safely.We have just had a terrific snow storm which lasted three 
and one half minutes, and I counted linearly one hundred flakes.The sun is now 
shining,and must have dissipated any hopes entertained by the small boy of good 
coasting.Yesterday I saw three shorelarks on the course and a pair of blue birds, 
which however,had nothing to say for themselves;so I judge they were not fooled 
into thniking that spring was here m earnest;.. 
I have just been looking over Dali's biography of Baird.lt goes without 
B „ in g that it is excellent yet I must confess I ... appointed ,i« it.It con¬ 
sists very largely of correspondence with well known non of soienoe.anu ot eour=e| 
sheds muoh light on the nature and work of Baird.Bot somehow it seems to me he 
should have had a more sympathetic historian who in words of his own shonla pamtj 
his life.I have always thought of Baird as before anything else an ornithologist, 
and, notwithstanding the great amount of work he accomplished in other fieide.as 
herpetology and iothyology,not to mention mammalogy,these subjects were seoondaryj 
to his love for birds.Perhaps I am wrong.I learn that »itme,r Stone was given the 
opportunity to write the biography,and name to Washington to look over the “«l a -| 
and then declined,while afterwards Dali accepted the task. Have you read its 
Do you have in your library Soi.ncePIf you do it will richly pay you to 
turn to Sol 48 n.s duly BOi "° 6 ““ 
puhliC.,he article is an excellent on. on Professor Baird hut what I psrtio- 
xarly wish to call your attention to is the paragraph on the last page but one. 
