100 



THE 00L0QI8T 



DREAMS! 



The Editor of THE OOLOGIST, 

 strange as it may seem to some of our 

 hardheade,d seientifics, is a firm be- 

 liever in the philosophy of dreams. 

 That they do at times disclose coming 

 events is beyond question. Premoni- 

 tions frequently come in the form of 

 dreams. In the life of the Editor num- 

 erous startling and uncanny experi- 

 ences are connected with dreams, and 

 certain events in his life and in the 

 lives of others near and dear to him 

 have ibeen controlled absolutely by 

 dreams, and there is some of these 

 in the most serious phases of life, 

 entering even the border land between 

 life and death. 



But enough on the philosophising 

 on the subject of dreams. Come with 

 the Editor and experience a dream 



(Startling as reality itself. In the 

 course of which we find ourself in a 

 little mountain town about a thousand 

 miles from home. We are inducted 

 into an old-fashioned stone house, 

 with walls fully two feet thick, three 

 stories and a basement high, covered 

 with the heaviest kind of slate roof, 

 and showing every evidence of having 

 been built by the sturdy men of for- 

 mer generations, and apparently cap- 

 able of withstanding the storms of 

 generations to come. 



We are introduced to a little old 

 man, rather under-slze, somewhat 

 stooped; with piercing black eyes and 

 a most kindly countenance. His son 

 tells us that he is totally deaf, and 

 has been during the last fifty-six years 

 of his sixty-nine years life. This old 

 gentleman is a good conversational- 

 ist and can carry on a lively conversa- 

 tion with the members of his family 

 who use the hand language of the 

 mutes with great rapidity. To the 

 Editor this dream man hands a heavy 

 black pencil and a writing tablet, 

 and we hold a pleasant conversation 



v/ith him, though rather slow as our 

 end of it was all written. 



He tells us about his father for 

 V, hom he seems to have the deepest 

 respect and veneration, tells us that 

 the house in which we are, is now oc- 

 cupied by the fifth generation of the 

 family, shows us the old family Bible 

 with the date mark of 1730; in which 

 is the entry of the birth of his father 

 at the place where we now are in our 

 dream in 1790. Tells us that his 

 father was formerly the maker of the 

 old-fashioned silk stove pipe hat and 

 also woolen ones; that the machine on 

 which and with which he constructed 

 this hand-made head gear is now in 

 the Museum of his state. 



Told us that his father was a great 

 lover and student of birds and animals 

 and Natural History generally, and 

 that he from 1840 to about 1885 con- 

 ducted a general tanning, taxidermy 

 and naturalist curiosity shop in the 

 town where this old house was, in a 

 building attached to it. That his father 

 was acquainted with and had deal- 

 ings with the most prominent Oolo- 

 gists and Ornithologists of that day, 

 and accumulated a very large collec- 

 tion of mounted birds, birds nests, 

 and birds eggs. At this point our 

 dream became very interesting and he 

 asked us if we would like to see the 

 collection of eggs and nests and said 

 that the birds had been sold long ago. 

 Just like yourself, gentle reader, we 

 would like to see them! Thereupon 

 we dreamed that we followed this 

 kindly old gentleman up two flights 

 of musty, dusty stairs, and we were 

 suddenly introduced into a large room. 

 If it is possible that persons open 

 their eyes in dreams our eyes were 

 opened very wide at that instant. 

 There was a room about thirty-six feet 

 by twenty-four feet with a very high 

 ceiling and four very large windows 

 on each side, in which were the old- 



