THE 00 LOG 1ST. 



83 



most youug men of Virginia in those 

 days, his early life was spent in study, 

 with intervals of leisure devoted to the 

 sports of the field, in the midst of that 

 unbounded hospitality for which Virginia 

 was once famed. At twenty he gradu- 

 ated at Princeton College, and a year or 

 two later made a voyage to the Pacific, 

 as secretary to the commodore of our 

 squadron in those waters, returning 

 home to settle down as a farmer on a 

 portion of his paternal acres. Here I 

 visited Jind spent the day with him, a 

 short time since, and after looking over 

 his collection of drawings, received from 

 him the following particulars in relation 

 to his work. 



About the year 1859 or '60, his gen- 

 eral love for natural history began to 

 turn decidedly upon ornithology, and 

 having inherited with it a decided artis- 

 tic taste, he formed the resohxtion of de- 

 voting some years of his life, ten if 

 necessary, to an illustrated work on or 

 nithology. He had never taken a lesson 

 in drawing and was entirely unacquaint- 

 ed with the jDreparation or application 

 of colors. He procured the necessary 

 materials, and took nature as his guide. 

 In his rides about the country, and in 

 his daily avocations, his gun and note- 

 book were liis ccmstant coni^anions. Pen 

 and pencil were equally employed. With 

 the one he recorded the notes and move- 

 ments of the feathered tribes, their mi- 

 grations, their modes of building, their 

 jDeculiar food, etc., with the other he re- 

 produced in vivid colors the attitudes 

 and occupations that he had studied in 

 the forest. In the spring of 1861 he 

 had prodiiced more than a hundred 

 drawings of life size, each representing 

 a species, with its appropriate action 

 and scenery. The war put a period to 

 his work, as his home was overrun by 

 armies from the beginning to the close 

 of the contest. 



He emerged from it crippled in for- 

 tune, and for some years was compelled 

 to devote himself to the pursuits of a 



farm life. He has since the war added 

 some fifty more siDecies to his collection, 

 Init has been compelled to abandon his 

 design of making a complete work on 

 "The Birds of Virginia." 



The results of his work so far are life- 

 like drawings (considered by some equal 

 to Audubon's) of about one hundred and 

 fifty species, a large mass of notes, a re- 

 cord of the migrations of seventy or 

 eighty species through seven years, and 

 a collection of the eggs (with the nests 

 in many cases) of neal-ly all the birds of 

 the vicinity. 



Mr. Allen's residence, though on an 

 eminence commanding an extensive view 

 of moimtain and plain, is so buried in 

 forest and shade trees as to be almost 

 invisible from the turnpike — distant 

 only a fourth of a mile — and here he 

 lives unknown to the world, and unam- 

 bitious of fame. His reading has been 

 extensive, and he is familiar with six 

 languages. 



He has recently turned his attention 

 to botany, and hopes in a few years to 

 produce an illustrated flora of the Shen- 

 andoah Valley. — V. M. Firor, in Fam- 

 iliar Science. 



« 



— RosE-BREASTED Grosbeak. In the 

 August number (1878) " Familiar Sci 

 ence" we asked how many eggs had been 

 found in the nest of the Rose-breasted 

 Grosbeak. M. L. Kidder rej)lied that 

 " nine years ago I took five fledgelings 

 from a nest in an apple tree not ten rods 

 from my door, in a thickly settled loca- 

 tion in this town(Northampton). Have 

 an instance of a nest being found here 

 this season with four. These may be 

 ihe rule, or they may be isolated or rai'e 

 numbers." In every nest we have found 

 three was the number. We have heard 

 of four but never saw them. Let us 

 hear from oiir collectors in the North- 

 west, where this bird is more plentiful 

 than in the N. E. States. 



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