2Qo Corresf oitden ce, [ Octobe r 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



[Correspondents ate requested to isyrite briefly and to the point. No attention will be 

 paid to anonymous cornmuni cations?[ 



Robert W. Shufeldt, 3d. 



To THE Editors of The Auk : — 



Dear Sirs: — At a recent session of the Faculty of Marietta College the 

 following minute was adopted : — 



"It is with a deep sense of personal loss that the Faculty of Marietta 

 College extend heartfelt sympathy to Dr. R. W. Shufeldt and his family 

 in view of their great bereavement in the death of Robert W. Shufeldt, 

 3d, who for six months has been connected with Marietta Academy as a 

 student and with Marietta College as taxidermist and collector for the 

 Natural History Museum. The Faculty wish to put on record their high 

 estimate of his character and his work. His sudden death by drowning, 

 Julj' II, 1892, while on an ornithological expedition, has taken from the 

 scientific world an ambitious young scientist of unusual promise. It gives 

 us great pleasure to accept from Dr. R. W. Shufeldt of Takoma Park, 

 D. C., the private ornithological collection of his son in whose memory it 

 shall be preserved in the College Museum as 'The Shufeldt collection." 

 By order of the Faculty, 



T. F. McKenney, Secretary.'^ 



Permit me to add a few personal reminiscences of Mr. Robert Shu- 

 feldt with whom it was my privilege to work in 'The Marietta Scientific 

 Association,' in the College Museum and in the field. He was a young 

 man well fitted for the work to which he was determined to give his life. 

 I do not remember ever seeing a man so young who had so definitely in 

 mind just what he wanted to make a life work. He eagerly grasped at 

 every opportunity that would assist him in his chosen calling. He was 

 invited to come to Marietta College last January to assist in putting the 

 ornithological collection of the college into shape and, by giving to this 

 work his leisure, to win his own way to a thorough collegiate education. 

 His strong will power induced him to endeavor to abi-idge the preparatory 

 course by extra study, and he would have succeeded. He entered upon his 

 scientific work with alacrity and in a short time has brought order out of 

 chaos in the Museum. During these few months the collection of birds 

 trebled in size, and as the summer vacation came on we were preparing to 

 do extensive work in the field. Our object was to secure adequate speci- 

 mens of every object of natural history, within the radius of one hundred 

 miles around Marietta, as a basis for larger collections through gift and 

 exchange. Mr. Shufeldt entered most intelligently aud successfully into 

 the plan and in the end would have become a specialist in this region of 

 the country. 



