a similar
knowledge in its application to the productions of other countries. This
seemed to me, in those days, the legitimate aim and proper work of a
naturalist. I still possess manuscript volumes in which I entered the
names of all the animals and plants with which I became acquainted, and
I well remember that I then ardently hoped to acquire the same
superficial familiarity with the whole creation. I did not then know how
much more important it is to the naturalist to understand the structure
of a few animals than to command the whole field of scientific
nomenclature. Since I have become a teacher, and have watched the
progress of students, I have seen that they all begin in the same way.
But how many have grown old in the pursuit, without ever rising to any
higher conception of the study of nature, spending their life in the
determination of species, and in extending scientific terminology! Long
before I went to the university, and before I began to study natural
history under the guidance of men who were masters in the science during
the early part of this century, I perceived that though nomenclature and
classification, as then understood, formed an important part of the
study, being, in fact, its technical language, the study of living
beings in their natural element was of infinitely greater value. At that
age--namely, about fifteen--I spent most of the time I could spare from
classical and mathematical studies in hunting the neighboring woods and
meadows for birds, insects, and land and fresh-water shells. My room
became a little menagerie, while the stone basin under the fountain in
our yard was my reservoir for all the fishes I could catch. Indeed,
collecting, fishing, and raising caterpillars, from which I reared
fresh, beautiful butterflies, were then my chief pastimes. What I know
of the habits of the fresh-water fishes of Central Europe I mostly
learned at that time; and I may add, that when afterward I obtained
access to a large library and could consult the works of Bloch and
Lacepede, the only extensive works on fishes then in existence. I
wondered that they contained so little about their habits, natural
attitudes, and mode of action, with which I was so familiar."

[Illustration: J.L.R. AGASSIZ.]

It is this way of looking at things that gives to Agassiz's writings
their literary and popular interest. He was born in Mortier, Canton
Fribourg, May 28th, 1807, the son of a clergyman, who sent his gif