Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/568

548 "Upland and Meadow," of which the English critic, James Purves, pronouncing it "the most delightful book of its kind which America has given us," and declaring that "it closely approaches White's 'Selborne,'" only gave formal expression to the thought which arose in the mind of every reader.

was born June 4, 1843, in Trenton, New Jersey, the third son of Timothy Abbott and Susan Conrad. He is of Quaker descent on both sides. His paternal ancestor came from England in 1680, and his maternal ancestor, Dennis Conrad, the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, from Germany at about the same time.

Until nearly the present time the family (Abbotts) remained Quakers, in three generations only two marriages with others than Quakers having taken place. Dr. Abbott's own sympathies are with the Hicksite or Unitarian branch of that denomination.

Although no naturalist among the Abbotts of Burlington County, New Jersey, appeared in earlier generations, it is a somewhat significant fact that a fondness for such studies was so marked as to lead to a long intimacy with the Bartrams of Philadelphia, when the naturalists John and William (father and son) were living, and the celebrated Bartram's garden on the Schuylkill was kept up.

Young Abbott himself exhibited a very strong liking for natural history at an early age, and never was afraid of living animals of any kind. This fearlessness resulted frequently in stings, bites, and scratches by the creatures which, too often, were rudely handled. These tastes were probably an inherited trait, derived from his maternal grandfather, Solomon W. Conrad, at one time lecturer on botany and mineralogy at the University of Pennsylvania.

From 1852 to 1858, inclusive, Abbott attended the Trenton Academy, then a good classical school, but under strict theological control, where anything savoring of science, even zoölogy, was frowned upon as likely to produce direful spiritual results. Indeed, Abbott was once punished for asserting that a whale was not a fish, the teacher insisting that it was, "on the authority of Scripture." Rebellion against such ignorance kept Abbott in ill-favor with the faculty, and practically little knowledge worth the having was acquired. But, as an offset to this, every Saturday and Sunday was wholly taken up with out-door studies of the fauna of the neighborhood. The gatherings of these "two-day" tramps were usually brought home alive, and the frequent escape of snakes, lizards, and snapping-turtles, not only in the yard, but in the house, necessitated some restrictions upon his methods of study, which, however, were usually circumvented, and the obnoxious creatures kept turning up in many unsuspected localities.

When, on the approach of manhood, the vital question of business or a profession came up, the nearest approach to Abbott's tastes was the study of medicine, and it was commenced in a half-hearted way