Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/178

 154 GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT. [1847,

pen ; I meant red-finned minnow. This is their name here ; though smaller specimens have but a slight reddish tinge at the base of the pecto rals.

Will you, at your leisure, answer these queries ?

Do you mean to say that the twelve banded minnows which I sent are undescribed, or only one? What are the scientific names of those minnows which have any ? Are the four dace I send to-day identical with one of the former, and what are they called ? Is there such a fish as the black sucker described, distinct from the common ?

AGASSIZ TO THOREAU (AT CONCORD).

In October, 1849, Agassiz, in reply to a re quest from Thoreau that he would lecture in Bangor, sent this characteristic letter :

&quot; I remember with much pleasure the time when you used to send me specimens from your vicinity, and also our short interview in the Marlborough Chapel. 1 I am under too many obligations of your kindness to forget it. I am very sorry that I missed your visit in Boston ; but for eighteen months I have now been settled in Cambridge. It would give me great pleasure to engage for the lectures you ask from me for the Bangor Lyceum ; but I find it has been last

1 Where Agassiz was giving- a course of Lowell lectures.