114 Bhewster, In Memoriam: James Cushing Merrill. [April 



successively at the following amiy posts: — Fort Brown, Texas, 

 from February, 1876, to June, 1878; Fort Shaw, Montana, from 

 May, 1879, to May, 1880; Fort Custer, Montana, from June, 1880, 

 to the autumn of 1883; Columbus Barracks, Ohio, from 1883 to 

 1886; Fort Klamath, Oregon, from November, 1886, to August, 

 1887; Watervliet Arsenal, New York, September-October, 1887; 

 Frankford Arsenal, Pennsylvania, October, 1887, to November, 

 1889; Fort Reno, Oklahoma, November, 1889, to February, 1891; 

 Fort Sherman, Idaho, from October, 1894, to some time early in the 

 year 1897. 



The above data, taken mainly from letters and bird skins in my 

 possession, show how very many of his maturer years were spent 

 by Dr. Merrill in wild and remote places. This period may be 

 said, indeed, to have represented the better part of his life, in more 

 senses than one. Throughout it he enjoyed the constant companion- 

 ship of his devoted mother who shared with him the isolation and 

 privations inseparable from such an experience, and whose intellec- 

 tual, as well as maternal, pride and sympathy in his professional and 

 scientific work must have added immeasurably to his happiness 

 and comfort. Everywhere he made warm friends among his 

 brother officers and the enlisted men under his care, winning easily 

 their affection and respect by the fidelity with which he performed 

 his professional duties as Post Surgeon. To these he gave — as was 

 fitting — his first allegiance, never allowing anything else to inter- 

 fere with them. Fortunately they were not ordinarily so onerous as 

 to prevent him from devoting much of his time to other interests, 

 chief among which was the study of natural history. This interest, 

 as we have seen, was not wanting in his early youth. With advanc- 

 ing years it deepened and broadened until it became, next to his 

 profession, the ruling passion of his life. Every branch of zoology 

 attracted him, but he gave his attention mainly to ornithology and 

 entomology. Like many another army officer, he was a keen 

 sportsman and a persistent fisherman. Opportunities for indulg- 

 ing all these kindred tastes were not lacking at the frontier posts 

 where he was stationed, and he improved them to the utmost, 

 devoting an especially large share of his leisure time to studying 

 and collecting birds, with their nests and eggs, and insects, par- 

 ticularly beetles. He did not, however, attempt to form a private 



