° 1920 J Henshaw, In Memoriam: William Brewster. 5 



a cunning craftsman in the art of making skins, and he never 

 begrudged the time and labor necessary to shape the specimen 

 into a thing of beauty. In his eyes it thus served two purposes, 

 as a scientific specimen to be labelled and laid away for study, and 

 as an object of beauty to satisfy the esthetic sense. 



There were few books on American birds in those days, and the 

 student of the present time with his command of almost limitless 

 literature can hardly realize how difficult to travel Avere the orni- 

 thological paths of that period. Fortunately in Mr. French's 

 library was a copy of Nuttall, and Brewster, as soon as his tastes 

 were declared,, received from his father a copy of the octavo edition 

 of Audubon. There was little within the covers of these two 

 treatises that he had not soon made his own, so far, at least, as the 

 accounts related to New England birds. 



Brewster and I became acquainted in 1865, in the Cambridge 

 High School, where we took the same preparatory course for college. 

 Our tastes proved to be very similar, and the acquaintance soon 

 ripened into a firm and enduring friendship, which was interrupted 

 only by his death. 



The several years that followed 1865 were very happy years for 

 both William and myself. Our studies were not very exacting, 

 and all our spare time was given up to scouring field and forest for 

 birds and eggs. The health of neither of us was on a firm basis, 

 and this fact, which we perhaps made the most of, reconciled our 

 parents to our outdoor life, especially after a college career was 

 closed to us. 



It was our custom to start for the woods soon after daybreak, 

 often afoot, sometimes in a buggy, for the Fresh Pond swamps (a 

 favorite haunt), or for Belmont, Waverley, Lexington, or Concord. 

 Occasionally we were joined on these trips by Ruthven Deane or 

 Henry Purdie, when they could get away from business. As the 

 result of this activity Brewster's collection grew apace until it con- 

 tained all but a few of the local species. It ultimately became one 

 of the largest private collections ever made in this country, and in 

 some respects it is by far the most valuable. It is a pleasure to 

 state that in accordance with long cherished plans Brewster left it 

 in its entirety to the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard 

 University. 



