THE MUSEUM. 



269 



College of that state, to save them from 

 utter ruin from moths and mice and 

 rats, as I had no place for them or any 

 time to hunt up some one to buy them. 

 I suppose they are there now, but don't 

 know. 



From 1864 to 1874 Amherst was the 

 Queen of collecting centres. It was 

 just wild enough to be crammed full of 

 birds in the summer. The rarer mi- 

 gratory species were alnindant in 

 spring and fall. The woods fairly 

 teemed all the year, with bird life. 

 In the winter even, flocks of Crossbills 

 by the hundreds in our garden, of both 

 varieties-. The Linnets, Woodpeckers 

 (Red-headed and Hairy, as well as 

 Yellow-bellied; all around the house 

 by the dozens. Think of it? 



The woods I used to go to most fre- 

 quently were called the Baker's woods. 

 A man by the name of Baker lived 

 close by and owned much land there. 

 He was reputed to be mean and to fire 

 at persons whom he saw in his fields. 

 Near by was Mill River, called Fresh- 

 man River because the SopJioniores 

 used to get some poor luckless fresh- 

 man and duck him in the river, every 

 year. A man by the name of Smith 

 owned about this river, who also used 

 to shoot at persons whom he found in 

 his lots. He shot at me once, but the 

 bullet whizzed blamelessly above my 

 head. Of course I ducked, I can laugh 

 at it now. 



The first woods back of our house 

 was the Baker's woods. We used to 

 call it the ist Bakers. 100 rods from 

 this was another which we called 2d 

 Bakers. At right angles to this, 50 

 rods awa}-, was a pine grove, back of 

 which was a swamp; all this was called 

 the 3d Bakers. This was only a part 

 of my collecting, ground. 



About this time I began to read Au- 

 dubon, Wilson, Nuttall, and all the 

 bird-books that I could find. Singly 

 or all together they failed to give me 

 what I wanted, so I determined to 

 make a bird-book for myself. With 

 the three books above named, and a 

 good many others, I compiled and 

 wrote a book on the Birds of Massa- 

 chusetts. At least I described about 

 54 birds and wrote 400 pages of com- 

 mercial note paper, sitting up nights 

 and, I mourn to say it, stealing away 

 Sundays to work on it; perhaps that's 

 the reason why it never amounted to 

 anything. I have the manuscript now, 

 and I occasionally take it out and look 

 at it. Sigh at the amount of super- 

 fluous energy wasted, and laugh at the 

 enthusiastic "stories" in it. 



The birds. How tame they were! 

 Right in our own garden- -Baltimore 

 and Orchard Orioles; Blue Jays and 

 Wild Pigeons; Black and Yellow-billed 

 Cuckoos; Red-headed, Downy, and 

 Hairy Woodpeckers; Sparrow and 

 Sharp-shinned Hawks — I have kept 

 dozens of Sparrow Hawks, young and 

 old, alive; they are beaiitiful pets; 

 Brown Thrashers (we didn't then sub- 

 mit to the English name Thresher [not 

 the same bird, by the way]) and Cat 

 Birds; Turtle Doves and Partridges; 

 "Moss" birds and "Sky Wrens" — who 

 can tell me, these days, what they 

 were.^ Well all these right in the gar- 

 den not 20 rods from the house were 

 of common, almost every day occur- 

 ences, and all but the Partridges bred 

 there. And these are only a few of 

 the species that I collected every year 

 in the same place, in those days. 

 Now we will jump the fence, take the 

 back road, and walking less than 50 



