NED HOLLISTEK (1876-1924) ^ 



By WiLFBED H. Osgood, 

 Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago 



[With 2 plates] 



Although Ned Hollister's death occurred before his years had 

 reached the half century mark, the consciousness that he is gone 

 brings pangs similar to those evoked by the passing of older natural- 

 ists belonging to another generation. He was one of those heart-and- 

 soul, born lovers of animals, who carry not only an affectionate sym- 

 pathy for living things but also a passion for orderly knowledge of 

 them — one of those whose career began in boyhood with the forma- 

 tion of a collection of his own and led on, without benefit of school 

 or college, to mastery of difficult technical subjects as naturally and 

 easily as if he had been ordained for it. 



He was born November 26, 1876, in Delavan, Wis., the youngest 

 of a family, including also two brothers, Warren D. and Kenneth, 

 and a sister Margaret. His forbears were of English blood, one of 

 the better known of them being Lieut. John HoUister, who came to 

 America in 1642 and was later prominent in the colonial affairs of 

 Connecticut. His grandfather was a native of New York State and 

 thence, in 1839, migrated to southern Wisconsin, where he settled in 

 Rock Prairie, Walworth County. His father, Kinner Newcomb 

 Hollister, was born near Delavan on a farm which he continued to 

 own after moving into town and opening a store. He sold this 

 business to enter the Civil War, where he was commissioned captain, 

 and after the war returned to Delavan to continue in a general mer- 

 chandise business until his death in 1911. Ned's mother, Frances 

 Margaret (Tilden) Hollister, is still living in Delavan. They be- 

 longed to that class of well-informed, prosperous, and independent 

 people which makes nations great, engaged mainly in farming or 

 local business connected with farming. Their home was one in which 

 nothing essential was lacking, and while the great outdoors was al- 

 ways at hand, it was supplemented by the social and educational ad- 

 vantages of the village and by proximity to the two large cities — 

 Chicago and Milwaukee. 



1 Reprinted by permission from Journal of Mammalogy, vol. 6, No. 1, February, 1925. 



599 



