With an allowance of only $250 a year, Agassiz’s life was necessarily simple and severe. But the three companions soon found that their humble rooms had become the meeting-place of the most brilliant men in the University. Students and even professors crowded their simple living quarters, and naturalists of renown came to visit these extraordinary young men. “Someone was always coming or going; the half-dozen chairs were covered with books, piled one upon another—the bed, also, was used as a seat, and as a receptacle for specimens, drawings and papers.” Specimens of various sorts decorated the walls. In Agassiz’s own room were several hundred fish, “shut up in a wooden tub with a cover and in various big glass jars. A live gudgeon with beautiful stripes is wriggling in his wash-bowl, and he has adorned his table with monkeys.” During their vacations the young men made expeditions to see such museums as were within reach, and to visit any scientific men to whom they could obtain an introduction. All of southern Germany was included in their rambles, and their wanderings carried them even into explorations of extensive tracts of the Alps. But although Agassiz had come to Munich for the special purpose of taking the degree of doctor of medicine, his studies soon drifted from those of a medical student to the studies of a true naturalist. He had gone to Heidelberg “with a strong taste for natural history; he left Munich devoted heart and soul to science.” Under these circumstances it was only natural that his first degree should be that of doctor of philosophy; but a year later, to fulfill the desires of his parents, he received the degree of doctor of medicine and surgery. Up to this time Agassiz had paid no particular attention to the study of ichthyology, which was later to become the great occupation of his life; but in 1829 he was unexpectedly given the opportunity to prepare a history of the fresh-water fishes of Brazil, from a collection which had been made by a celebrated scientist who had died before he could prepare the report covering the collection. Agassiz threw himself enthusiastically into the work of describing and figuring these Brazilian fishes, and in 1829 the work was completed and published with the name of the youthful author on the title-page. His life-work was begun. It was at this time that he wrote to his father: “I wish it may be said of Louis Agassiz that he was the first naturalist of his time, a good citizen, and a good son, beloved by those who know him.”