A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of The Audubon Societies 



Vol. XXI September— October, 1919 No. 5 



WILLIAM BREWSTER, 1851-1919 



"Even the dealli of friends will inspire us as much as their 

 lives. . . . Their memories will be encrusted over with 

 sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men 

 are overgrown with moss." — Thoreau. 



WILLIAM BREWSTER died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., on 

 July 1 2 last, seven days after the completion of his sixty-eighth year. 

 Those who are familiar with the results of his studies of birds and of 

 the work upon which he was still engaged, can measure the extent of his loss 

 to ornithology; but only those who were so fortunate as to know the man can 

 realize the nature of the loss sustained by his friends. 



Brewster never enjoyed rugged health. After his graduation from the 

 Cambridge High School, in 1869, his physical condition prohibited his entering 

 college. Fortunately, circumstances permitted him to gratify his inborn 

 desire to study birds. F.xev more interested in the living bird than in the 

 dead one, his ornithological pursuits kept him much out-of-doors, with conse- 

 quent improvement in his health, and for the succeeding quarter of a century 

 he devoted himself without hindrance to his chosen calling. Then appeared 

 obscure symptoms of bodily ills, which, increasing in severity with the pass- 

 ing years, greatly handicapped him in his scientific labors and finally resulted 

 in his death from pernicious anemia. 



The foundation of William Brewster's life was an intense love of nature. 

 Like some delicately adjusted apparatus, his whole being responded to the 

 influences of the open. The [)hcnomena of earth, air, and water were to him 

 endless sources of enjoyment. Without creative artistic ability, he neverthe- 

 less had an artist's perceptions and keen appreciation of the charm of line, 

 form, color, and composition in landscape. His feeling for nature, both in- 

 animate and animate, passed, indeed, beyond the bounds of ardent admira- 

 tion lo a lender reverence; he was, in truth, a worshipper of nature. For plants, 

 and especially for trees, Brewster had an interest and affection which found 



