110 



THE OSPREY. 



tality. Yes, that butterfly breaking from its chrysalis sects. I think I was conscientious about it, and 



in my hand shaped my future career." careful — perhaps minutely so. I tried to put on 



' 'But some young people may feel passing impulses, paper exactly what I saw, and nothing else. You say 



but how account for your artistic skill and literary you like ' Professor Wriggler. ' I drew him when I 



powers? 



was ten or eleven, and I could not make him any 



"As to the art side, at least deftness of hand came more accurate to-day than I did thirty years ago. 



early. I had the most methodical of grandmothers. 

 Every day I had a certain task. I made a square of 

 patch-work for a quilt. I learned how to sew, and I 

 can sew neatly to-day. I knew how to use my fingers." 



"Did you like patch-work?" I inquired. 



"I simply despised it. Sewing must have helped 

 me, for it was eye-training, and when I went to work 

 with a pencil and a paint-brush I really had no 

 trouble. I read a great deal. I devoured Cooper's 

 novels and the Rollo series ; but there was one spe- 

 cial volume, 'Harris on Insects,' I never tired of. I 

 studied that over and over again. It was the illus- 

 trations of Marsh 

 which fascinated me. 

 I never found a bug, 

 caterpillar, or 

 butterfly that 

 I did not com- 

 pare my spec- v \ 

 i mens with ""^, 

 the Marsh 

 pictures. I 

 learned this 

 way much 

 which I have 

 never forgot- 

 ten." 



"Had you 

 any particu- 

 lar advan- 

 tages?" 



' ' Yes ; m y 

 brother was a 

 doctor, and 

 he let me use 

 his micro- 

 scope, and so 

 I acquired a 

 knowledge of 

 the details of 

 flowers and 



insects that escaped the naked eye. I pulled flowers of wings only. One single wretch of a black ant had 

 to pieces, but not in the spirit of destruction, but so got in, and had passed the word to 10,000 other black 

 that I might better understand their structure. When ants. They had eaten the bodies of my insects in all 

 I was ten I had a long illness. When I was getting the drawers. That quite broke my heart." 

 better I was permitted to take an hour's or so turn in " But your writing. How did that come about?" 



the garden. That hour I devoted to collecting insects I asked. 



and flowers. On my return to my room, what I had "I don't think that you can develop in one direc- 



collected amused me until I could get out again next tion only. You must unbosom yourself. You are 

 day or the day after." forced to tell or to write about the things you have 



"It was pleasure and study combined," I said. most at heart. When I was a small boy I wrote a 



"I was not conscious that I was studying. Then book for myself, and called it 'Botany on the Half- 

 in my sick-room I began to draw and paint the in- shell.' The first thing I ever wrote which was 



CHIPPING SPARROW FEEDING YOUNG COWBIRU. 



BY W. HAMILTON GIBSON. 



From ' My Studio Neighbors.' Copyright, 1897, by 

 Harper & Bros. 



"Were you en- 

 couraged at your 

 work? ' I inquired. 

 ' ' Yes ; once I 

 was much pleased. 

 I came across a 

 curious insect. I 

 could not find it in 

 the books. I made 

 a drawing of it and 

 sent it to a profes- 

 sor of the Smith- 

 sonian, asking 

 him to give 

 me its scien- 

 tific name. 

 ^ B a c k ca me 

 by the re- 

 turn mail my 

 sketch, and under it 

 the Latin name. 

 The professor wrote 

 me that if the people 

 who were always annoying him with pictures 

 of impossible bugs would only send him as 

 accurate a picture as was mine, he never 

 would have any more bother." 

 "Did you have any setbacks?" 

 "Yes: and I haven't forgotten it up to to- 

 day. I was^always collecting, and I had 

 brought together every insect I had found in 

 my neighborhood. As I took them home I 

 pinned them in the drawers of an old-fash- 

 oned bureau. In time the whole of the 

 drawers, bottom and sides, were full of pinned 

 specimens, and there was room for no more. 

 I had saved enough money to buy a cabinet, 

 and I went to New York and purchased one. 

 When I returned home the first thing I did 

 was to look at my precious collection. When 

 I opened a drawer there was a confused mass 



