[Boston—Monday, 24 September 1866]
Monday. Cold, wind at the east; signs of rain.
Went to see Gov. Andrew’s portrait by W. Hunt at Faneuil Hall—unfinished but very like the man, simple & with all his bonhomie peeping out—a good picture contrasting to good advantage with Ames’s picture of our President Lincoln on the opposite side of the hall.
J. received a call today from our consul in Mauritius who has brought to Boston two skeletons of the Dodo, the extinct bird of that island. He is anxious to see Mr Agassiz. It is said there are no other complete skeletons. He suspected the possibility of their existence in a certain tract of marshy ground and sent in natives nearly up to their necks in mud and water to feel about. After a time they struck these bones with which he came at once to New England, being convinced of their value as the real bones of the Dodo.
Already large numbers of young women, most of them accomplished in penmanship apply for a situation with T. & F.; near Christmas time the accounts for periodicals have to be made up and extra help from women is always engaged.