4 JOURNAL OF MAIN!-: ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



"I very well remember that first bird. Though I was a child, 

 I assisted. We had Manton's little book on taxidermy, and I read 

 the directions while father tried to follow them. The victim was a 

 Robin. It would not have been so bad a bird had we, or the book, 

 not forgotten to make an artificial neck before inserting the body. 

 We have it yet, a first start toward large results. 



"Once he had made a beginning, father resolved to do the work 

 thoroughly. People laughed at him for starting at his age to col- 

 lect all the birds in the United States. Vet since that day how 

 have the number of known United States birds increased ! And 

 from the United States alone, his ambitions spread to include all 

 North America and the parts faunally related. And yet he all but 

 completed this greater task, and the most of those which he lacked 

 were either extinct before he began his work or but one or two 

 specimens of them have ever been taken. Of the geographic races 

 he had by far the larger part, lacking comparatively few, and those 

 usually the commoner ones. In addition, he had some very fine 

 Pheasants and Birds of Paradise and a large collection of freaks and 

 albinos. 



"I could hardly name the best of his collections. In some 

 cases the bird is valued for its rarity, in some for its plumage, in 

 some for its mounting. I doubt if there are in the world better 

 specimens of the Californian Vulture, the Guadalupe Caracara, the 

 Harpy Eagle, the Great Wandering Albatross, the Scaled Petrel, 

 and others, which were prepared by that artist among taxidermists, 

 the late Mr. Critchley, of Providence. Among the greater rarities 

 I should name the type specimen of the Black Merlin (adult), 

 Peale's Falcon, a pair of the Masked Bob-white, Cory's Bittern, the 

 Heath Hen, the Guadalupe Towhee, three fine Passenger Pigeons, 

 the Whooping Crane, a magnificent pair of the great Imperial 

 Woodpeckers, Ross's Rosy Gull, the Black-Masked Duck, and 

 many others very rarely found in collections. His specimen of the 

 downy young of the Scaled Petrel is believed to be unique. 



"Father usually gave away his observations to' others. He 

 took no pleasure in holding any personal title to an observation, and 



