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THOREAU AS NATURALIST
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specimens, which included almost all kinds of scientific norms, were carefully preserved and arranged in boxes and bins of his own manufacture. The most valuable of his treasures, including rare lichens, plants, stones and Indian relics, were given at his request, after his death, to the Massachusetts Natural History Society, of which he was an honored member.

Thoreau's special work as a scientist was in functional rather than in biological details. The habitudes and moods, the changes of growth, were carefully noted, and in their records also appeared any subjective effects which might impress him. The ideality of the poet-mystic was added to the sympathetic vision of the naturalist. In rereading an old volume of the Atlantic Monthly, in search of Thoreau's essays, one finds, in close proximity to the lectures on "Walking" and "Wild Apples," a long series of papers by Professor Agassiz on "Methods of Studying Natural History." Perhaps no better distinction in the modes and minds of the two classes could be noted. One represented that rare type, the poet and philosopher of nature; the other was the prince of exact, tabulating scientists.

Thoreau is more closely linked with Jefferies than with any other naturalist who preceded or was