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Obituary.



of snow-water. His leg wasn't froze at all, but it was a long time

before he wanted to go to the creek again—he was a willin’ barn

chicken after that.


“ In the spring, when the old man went down to the town, Dick

went with me to my traps—I had traps settin’ for muskrat, mink,

skunk, and wolves. Dick heerd a gun, and thought it was the old

man and flew after him. I called him and he answered me— Peep —

but wouldn’t come back. I heerd him light and laugh, and then

heerd another shot and didn’t hear him laugh no more. It was

about a week we didn’t see nor hear nothin’ of Dick—I’d give him

up for dead. Then the old man went up to the pond fishin’ one

day, and Dick was there, covered with dried blood, and weak. But

he wouldn’t let him ketch him, so he come home and tell me about

it. Of course, I went up as tight as my legs would carry me. He

wouldn’t let me ketch him, but he followed me home. He was pretty

near starved, but he began to pick up, to fat up.


“ In about three weeks we moved away, and they wouldn’t let me

take him—thought he was too weak to foller and we get him in the

fall. But after he was gone the feller who shot him before killed

him*—and we never saw no more of Dick.”



OBITUARY.


James Howard Symonds .—He who has been styled “ a

Richard Jefferies of the Camera,” and one of the gentlest of Nature’s

lovers, to whom the life of a wild bird was sacred, has fallen in the

war whilst working a machine gun. We have several times had the

privilege of being permitted to reproduce some of his beautiful photo¬

graphs in our magazine, such as nightingales at their nests, gold¬

finches on teazel, reed-warblers and other British birds. Photographs

taken on the moors, in the thickets, by rivers and ponds, and on

thistle-clad wastes.


His success with the kingfishers was very fine. In ‘ Country

Life ’ (June 30th) it is written of him: “ He has joined what Sir

Thomas Browne called ‘ the mighty nations of the dead,’ and is



* [How low down humans are still!—En.j



