58 



THE OOLOGIST. 



Montana— an illustration of the subse- 

 -quentness of glory in the army! 



During his long period of service as 

 an army officer he was stationed at a 

 number of the most remote and inac- 

 cessible posts in the West, among which 

 may be mentioned Cantonment Burg- 

 wyn, in New Mexico; Forts Bowie, 

 McDowell, Wallen, Lowell and Whip- 

 ple, in Arizona; Bidwell and Independ- 

 ence (the latter in Owens Valley,) in 

 California; Harney and Klamath, in 

 Oregon; Vancouver and Walla Walla, 

 in Washington; Boise and Lapwai, in 

 Idaho, and Custer, in Montana. And 

 it should be remembered that his ser- 

 vice at most of these posts antedated 

 the the construction of the transcontin- 

 ental railroads which now traverse the 

 States and Territories in which most of 

 them are located. 



Bendire was a man of energy, perse- 

 verance and courage, and in our Indian 

 wars naturally took a prominent part. 

 This part was sometimes that of a dread- 

 ed foe who followed them relentlessly 

 over mountain and desert and penetrat- 

 ed their- most distant retreats; some- 

 times that of a peace maker, as when 

 in the midst of the bloody Apache war 

 he boldly visited the camp of Cochise, 

 the celebrated Apache chief, and induc- 

 ed him to abandon the war path. He 

 treated the Indians, as he did everyone 

 else, with perfect frankness and fair- 

 ness, and never deceived them. They 

 were not long in learning that they 

 could rely absolutely on his word, 

 which gave him a postive advantage in 

 all his dealings with them, for they al- 

 ways respected him and when not at 

 war liked him. 



Aside from his movements in the 

 field in connection with Indian wars, 

 he led a number of expeditions for oth- 

 er purposes, such as laying out roads, 

 surveying routes for telegraph lines, 

 and exploring unknown country — as 

 when he crossed the Death Valley in 

 1867, and exploited the deserts of south- 



central Nevada as far east as Pahrana- 

 gat Valley. No other American Nat- 

 uralist in modern times has spent half 

 so much time in the field as Bendire, 

 and his voluminous note books attest 

 the accuracy and range of his observa- 

 tions. 



It is hard work to say just when Ben- 

 dire's scientific work began, or even 

 exactly when he commenced making 

 his famous collection of birds' eggs, 

 though it is certain that he was collect- 

 eng in 1870. Like many other army of- 

 ficers stationed in the West, he sent 

 Professor Baird from time to time nat- 

 ural history specimens and notes. 

 When stationed at St. Louis he became 

 an intimate friend of the eminent bot- 

 anist, Dr. George Engelmann, to whose 

 herbarium he was a valued contributor. 



His earliest published writings are in 

 ths form of letters to well-known 

 naturalists, chiefly Allen, Baird and 

 Brewer. J'he first volume of the Bul- 

 letin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 

 (1876) contains several such letters, 

 published by J, A. Allen. 



In 1877 he published an important 

 paper on the Birds of Southeastern 

 Oregon, based on three years' field 

 work in the region around Fort Harney. 

 In all, he has written about fifty papers, 

 most of which relate to birds and their 

 eggs, though several treat of mammals 

 and fishes. But the work which will 

 carry his name and fame to future gen- 

 erations is his "Life Histories of North 

 American Birds," of which the second 

 volume was reviewed Science not long 

 ago (N. S. Vol, IV, No.96, Oct. 30, 1896, 

 pp. 657-658.) It is a calamity to the 

 science of ornithology, for which he 

 was in no way responsible, that the re- 

 maining volumes of this great work, 

 which contains more original informa- 

 tion on the habits of our birds than any 

 other since the time of Audubon, Wil- 

 son and Nuttall, were not made ready 

 for publication. 



In his personal life Bendire was a 



