5 The education of a Seton Indian 



out tsee-eep, tsee-eep and later saw one of the objects of my 

 search. Then I made a sound which alarmed him and, calling 

 louder than before, he flew away followed by five of his fellow- 

 men. Or women. 



Obviously, my brother John had the makings of an ornithologist. 



It was in high school that these interests, until then rather vague 

 and pleasant and undemanding, began to crystallize and to assume 

 some purpose. It was a gradual process, aided by a wise biology 

 teacher who enlisted a large number of us in an Audubon Junior 

 Club. It was through this club that I met for the first time ornitholo- 

 gists like Arthur A. Allen and Louis Agassiz Fuertes who lectured 

 in town under our sponsorship and corresponded with Frank M. 

 Chapman and T. Gilbert Pearson. All this broadened our hori- 

 zons and taught us that there were more rewarding ways of studying 

 birds than by looking at them along a gun barrel. I deserted the 

 ranks of mighty hunters and trappers forever and became a dedi- 

 cated ornithologist and conservationist. 



At fifteen I was an extremely active youngster, and although 

 my allegiance to forest trails, to sunlit reaches of the Susque- 

 hanna River, and to the fauna of the surrounding area was unim- 

 peachable, I also managed to find time for other things. Since the 

 age of nine I had been maintaining an increasingly bad treble in 

 the boy's choir at Christ Church in Williamsport, where a com- 

 pletely improbable English choirmaster named Frank Gatward, 

 aided by a Conan Doyle mustache, an old-fashioned dickey, sleeve- 

 less cuffs, an alpaca coat, and jokes lifted from Ally Sloper's Holi- 

 day, was one of the great delights in the lives of all of us who came 

 under his stern choirmaster's eye. I had nearly ten years of it, which 

 included three week-day practices and no less than two services on 

 Sundays. But sometimes, for a dedicated outdoorsman and budding 

 ornithologist, the strain was evident. At Sunday services we were 

 forced to wear "Buster Brown collars." It was one of the sacrifices 

 that had to be made. Most of us removed these collars with cassock 

 and surplice after service. But the worst ordeal of all was wearing 

 them on the way to church on Sunday morning when all the world 

 could see. This requirement not only kept the collar clean, of 



