44 



THE OOLOGIST 



With Will Crispin. 



For several years I had known and 

 admired Will Crispin as a fearless and 

 indomitable climber, but during the 

 last year of his life I not only admired 

 him because of his prowess but lov- 

 ed and respected him as a man who 

 was clean and straight as an arrow. 

 God might have made better men than 

 Will Crispin but I never met them. 

 We had been corresponding for about 

 two years and through Will I came to 

 know more of Jackson, Sharpless and 

 Darlington, men whom I admired for 

 what they had accomplished and of 

 whom the student of oology can be 

 just as proud as was Crispin to call 

 them his friends. 



About two years ago he wrote me 

 and proposed a scheme to help each 

 other. Crispin was very anxious to 

 personally take sets of the Pileated 

 Woodpecker, Northern Raven and 

 Duck Hawk, while my ambition tended 

 toward Great Blue Herons and Bald 

 Eagles. The result was that we plan- 

 ned to work together during the sea- 

 son of 1913. During late February I 

 went all the way to Wilmington to 

 meet Will on a trip to a Bald Eagle's 

 nest but missed connections and fail- 

 ed to meet him. At that time he had 

 just returned from a trip after Eagles 

 and wrote me in glowing terms of the 

 prince of Oologists, H. H. Bailey, 

 whose recent book is an ever lasting 

 monument to himself. Disappointed 

 I returned to the College while Will 

 collected several fine sets of Eagles. 



A little later I sent him a set of four 

 Northern Raven which he was very 

 anxious to obtain, it being one of the 

 five sets from Pennsylvania. Later 

 we corresponded concerning the Duck 

 Hawk's nest at Nockamison and when 

 I wrote to Will that I contemplated 

 a visit about April 15th he gladly offer- 

 ed me his ropes which he had used 

 on an earlier trip and had left near 



the base of the cliffs. At this time I 

 remonstrated with him concerning his 

 going over the cliff alone but he did 

 not seem to regard the descent of the 

 cliff as anything especially difficult 

 and told me he would try for a later 

 set in May. On April 8th I spent the 

 day with him in a trip to the Great 

 Blue Herony near his home and later 

 we inspected his collection. Little 

 did I suppose as I bade him farewell 

 on the morning of April 9th and heard 

 his cheery "Good luck, Richard" that 

 they would be the last words that I 

 would ever hear him utter. We found 

 the Duck Hawk's nest empty and 

 were informed by another party who 

 was also in search of the eggs that 

 only one bird was about so on we 

 went, after my climbers had made suc- 

 cessful descent to the nest over the 

 slippery rocks. 



On May 5th, 1913, Will wrote me 

 that he thought there would be eggs 

 there by that time, and ended, "By 

 the time you get this I will be over 

 the rocks." My feelings may well be 

 imagined then, when I picked up the 

 paper and read of his tragic death. 

 Later I learned that the eggs had been 

 secured by another party who deliber- 

 ately slandered me and accused me 

 of taking them. At the present time 

 I could in a half hour secure affida- 

 vits to show that I was not within a 

 hundred miles of the nest after April 

 11th and as to the party's reason for 

 accusing me after he had secured the 

 eggs for himself, I am at a loss to 

 state. The one thing I wish to make 

 clear is that Will Crispin to the day of 

 his death was one of my firmest 

 friends. He always played square and 

 how a person could treat a man like 

 Will dirty is beyond my comprehen- 

 sion. And I can't help thinking that 

 if there is a heaven, Will is there, for 

 if ever there was a disciple of the 

 Golden Rule, it was he. Frank, 



