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 Nov., 1919 AUTOBIOGILPHICAL NOT_,S -21 promulgated prohibiting any Curator from maintaining a private collection of his own. The rule, which seems to me to be a wise one, was evidently intended to prevent a division of interest,.and to focus all the time and attention of the Curators upon the Museum collections. THE:WEST 'BASEMENT Another scientific sanctuary i:. the01d smithsonian building, edolent of many odors and fond memories, was'thewest ' basement, ii a room of which was stored the extensive collection of reptil,ei:and batrachian thc accumulation of years by the western survey expeditions and..of donations from private indi- viduals. Here Dr. Yarrow and I spent much "time preparing reports on the collections of the Wheeler Survey. Here also Dr. Yarrow made some interest- ing experiments with live snakes. Not rarely Prof. Baird looked in upon us as he passed along on one of his frequ.t inspection 'trips through the build- ing. Here also occasionally came Prof,'E. D. Cope, whose astonishing memory for natural history details was always a source of wonder to me. IIere also I used to see Prof. David Jordan at work on fishes when he made one of his rare visits to Washington. ACQUAINTANCE WITH DR. D. WEBSTER PRENTISS !Iention of Dr. Coues' name naturally recalls that of his associate in the publication of the earliest list of the birds of the District of Columbia, Dr. D. .V. Prentiss. Coues and Prentiss were college mates at the Columbian Univer- sity between the years 1858-1862. Their first list of the birds of the District was published in 1862 in the annual report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1861, and was the result of much boyish enthusiasm in the' study of birds, to- gether with no small amount of hard work. Needless to say that for the time it was an excellent piece of work. Nearly twenty-five years later was pub- lished in 883 their "Avifauna Columbiana" which brought the subject up to date, and in many ways marked a great advance over its predecessor. Soon after, both men entered the army as surgeons in t. he Civil War. After the war the demands of a growing practice in Washington caused Dr. Prentiss to relinquish all active work in ornithology, but he never entirely forgot his old love, and in the early eighties he and I made a number of trips after warb- lers to my favorite collecting grounds along the banks of the picturesque Rock Creek, the site of the present National Zoological Park. On these occasious we were up betimes in the morning, and after a hasty bite were off o as to bc on the ground between four and five o'clock, a time of day dear to all bird col- lectors. I'recall w/th pleasure the Doctor's enthusiasm over the first' Black- burnian Warbler he collected and the first he had ever seen. The Doctor was something of a sportsman in his younger days, and among other reminiscences, told me. that, as boys, he and Dr. Coues had killed English snipe in a "little springy place" on Dupont Circle, in the heart of what is now, or recently was, the fashionable residence part of Washington: He and I mde one memorable trip to the Patuxent liver after soras when an extraordinarily high tide flooded the marshes, and gave such shootlug as comes to a man, if at all, but once in hislife. - ACQUAINTANCE WITH GEO. N. LAWRENCE During-my annual trips from Washington to Boston I never failed to call on the veteran ornithologist,. Geo. N. LaVrenee, in New York. As I made my