It appeared
that he had made up his mind that he would take it himself, and had
actually come on to see Mr. Chapman to find out if the latter could
recommend a naturalist to go with him; and he at once said he would
accompany me. Chapman was pleased when he found out that we intended
to go up the Paraguay and across into the valley of the Amazon,
because much of the ground over which we were to pass had not been
covered by collectors. He saw Henry Fairfield Osborn, the president of
the museum, who wrote me that the museum would be pleased to send
under me a couple of naturalists, whom, with my approval, Chapman
would choose.
The men whom Chapman recommended were Messrs. George K. Cherrie and
Leo E. Miller. I gladly accepted both. The former was to attend
chiefly to the ornithology and the latter to the mammalogy of the
expedition; but each was to help out the other. No two better men for
such a trip could have been found. Both were veterans of the tropical
American forests. Miller was a young man, born in Indiana, an
enthusiastic with good literary as well as scientific training. He was
at the time in the Guiana forests, and joined us at Barbados. Cherrie
was an older man, born in Iowa, but now a farmer in Vermont. He had a
wife and six children.
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