STUDENT DAYS 41 



of West Newton, Ernest Ingersoll, C. J. Maynard, 

 and a few others, and then we definitely formed a 

 club for the study of birds, which met weekly at 

 William Brewster's house. We called it "The 

 Nuttall Ornithological Club" after the eminent 

 ornithologist. The club still exists in Cambridge, 

 and is the parent of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union. 



This college year passed much as the one be- 

 fore, except that my knowledge of birds had 

 become wider. The material obtained in Plain- 

 field gave me duplicates so that I could exchange 

 with both Henshaw and Brewster, who had small 

 collections of bird skins. 



In the next vacation a great delight awaited 

 me. A school friend of my mother had married 

 William H. Edwards, a naturalist, who was par- 

 ticularly interested in insects and more especially 

 in butterflies. My mother had kept up a rather 

 desultory correspondence with her friend, and in 

 an interchange of letters in the spring, an invita- 

 tion was extended to me to visit the family and 

 spend the coming vacation at their home. They 

 had formerly lived at Newburgh, on the Hudson, 

 and I had been there once ; but after the Civil War 

 Mr. Edwards became engaged in coal-mining in 

 West Virginia, and removed to the Kanawha Val- 

 ley, locating at the town of Coalburg, where he 

 had extensive mines which were being worked. 



