AVERY BIRD COLLECTION 15 
logical Survey (then the Division of Ornithology and 
Mammalology), the analyses of which are included in 
Dr. A. K. Fisher’s classic work on “The Hawks and 
Owls of the United States in Their Relation to Agricul- 
ture.” His correspondence with Dr. Fisher was exten- 
sive and it is very interesting to learn from Dr. Fisher 
that he himself, by mail, through the medium of the Eng- 
lish sparrow, taught Dr. Avery to make bird skins. Spar- 
row skins were prepared in such a way as to show the 
different operations necessary to produce a good museum 
skin and forwarded to Dr. Avery who thus was enabled 
to copy them in preparing other birds. Dr. Fisher also 
identified many of the more obscure species for Dr. Avery. 
Dr. Avery also corresponded actively with the officials 
of the U. S. National Museum and the American Museum 
of Natural History, notably: Dr. Elliott Coues, Major 
Charles E. Bendire, Robert Ridgway, Dr. J. A. Allen, and 
Dr. Frank M. Chapman. He contributed many speci- 
mens to both museums, including birds, eggs, nests, and 
notes which were sent to Maj. Bendire. Among the old 
Avery papers is quite a bundle of the diploma-like ac- 
knowledgments of these specimens by the Smithsonian 
Institute, all signed by G. Brown Goode, Assistant Sec- 
retary. His sets of Peucaea aestivalis bachmani were of 
considerable importance; and Davie’s quotation in ‘Nests 
and Eggs of North American Birds” of Bendire’s descrip- 
tion of “5 nests and several full sets” form the greater 
part of the information regarding the nesting of Bach- 
man’s sparrow published in that work. A series of 
specimens of Quiscalus quiscula was collected to aid Mr. 
Ridgway in working out the relationships of the different 
subspecies. Besides the aforementioned scientists, Dr. 
Avery corresponded more or less regularly with the fol- 
lowing: Dr. Harrison Allen, University of Pennsylvania; 
Frank B. Armstrong, Brownsville, Texas; Prof. Spencer 
F. Baird, Smithsonian Institution; William Brewster, 
Cambridge, Mass.; C. S. Brimley, Raleigh, N. C. (Brim- 
ley visited Avery at Greensboro in September, 1890) ; 
George G. Cantwell, Lake Mills, Wisconsin; F. H. Car- 
penter, Rehoboth, Mass.; William Dutcher, New York 
