650 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



perilous voyages at sea. He settled at Highland Falls about the 

 year 1815, where Alexander, his son, one of seven children, was born 

 in 1823. Doctor Mearns's father died in 1873, but his mother, who 

 comes of New England stock, is still living. 



Edgar Mearns manifested a remarkable interest in birds and ani- 

 mals at a very early age, and this taste was fostered by his father, 

 who bought him a large illustrated book on the native birds. He 

 took great pleasure in looking at the pictures — he was only 3 years 

 old at this time — and his mother spent hours in teaching him their 

 names and histories, and he soon developed a wonderful knowledge 

 of the subject for one of his years. As he grew older, his father 

 gave him a gun, and they would shoulder their arms and wander 

 through the fields together, close companions. He was taught to set 

 box traps in these early years, and if there was no one at hand to go 

 with him to inspect them, he would steal out alone to see what the 

 traps contained. As a schoolboy he was often tardy as a result of 

 lingering in the woods in search of specimens. Every natural object 

 interested and attracted him. 



Young Mearns was educated at Donald Highland Institute, at 

 Highland Falls, and subsequently entered the College of Physicians 

 and Surgeons of New York, from which he graduated in 1881. At 

 the outset of his medical course he became personally acquainted 

 with several of the young naturalists of the time, E. P. Bicknell, 

 A. K. Fisher, C. Hart Merriam, and others, some of whom were 

 attending the same routine of studies. He and Doctor Fisher 

 chanced to share the same room at a boarding house at this time, 

 and it was here that the budding young Linnaean Society held its 

 early meetings. 



When he was about 10 years old he began to write out and preserve 

 his observations on birds, and some of these, written in a very youth- 

 ful hand, are still extant ; but it was not until 1872, when a boy of 16, 

 that his efforts had crystallized into a plan to prepare a report on 

 the vertebrate fauna of his region, and he set to work with all the 

 energy and enthusiasm of youth to gather material and information 

 for this purpose. It was in the spring of this year that he seriously 

 began a collection, and he then formed the habit of carefully labeling 

 his specimens, noting any important items connected with each ob- 

 ject, such as its dimensions in the flesh, the color of its eyes, and other 

 facts of interest. This habit was faithfully followed in after years, 

 and in birds alone it is estimated that over 60,000 measurements were 

 recorded in his various field catalogues. He did not confine his atten- 

 tions to zoology, but devoted himself to the flora as well, and unlike 

 many young students he was ambitious to learn something of foreign 

 species, for as early as 1875 he was in correspondence with one or 



