Our Smith College Audubon Society. 



177 



1886, the constitution was adopted, the 

 president, vice-president, secretary, treas- 

 urer and executive committee were elected 

 — the field work committee being left for 

 appointment by the Council — and we be- 

 came formally organized as a college soci- 

 ety, scarcely three weeks from the beginning 

 of our work, and, as we prided ourselves, 

 some time before the establishment of the 

 Wellesley Society. 



By this time the end of the term was ap- 

 proaching, and ethics, theses, Plato, Kant, 

 Hegel and others were iealously claiming 

 our attention. 



The "S. C. A. S." grew during vacation, 

 however, and when we got back and heard 

 that Mr. Burroughs was coming to begin 

 field work with us, we felt sure of success. 

 He was in Northampton three days, and 

 took us out in classes of from ten to forty, 

 whenever we could get away from recita- 

 tions. The first morning, about forty started 

 out at half-past five, and the same afternoon 

 thirty of us climbed Mt. Tom with him. It 

 was early in the spring for birds, and our 

 numbers were enough to have frightened 

 back to the South the few that had ven- 

 tured North ; but the strong influence 

 of Mr. Burroughs's personality and quiet 

 enthusiasm gave just the inspiration that 

 was needed. We all caught the conta- 

 gion of the woods. With gossamers and 

 raised umbrellas we would gather about 

 him under the trees, while he stood leaning 

 against a stump, utterly indifferent to the 

 rain, absorbed in incidents from the life of 

 some goldfinch or sparrow, interpreting the 

 chippering of the swift as it darted about 

 overhead, or answering the questions put to 

 him, with the simplicity and kindliness of a 

 beneficent sage. 



After he left, we lost no time in arrang- 

 ing our spring field work. A committee of 

 four gave up certain hours to taking the 

 girls out, a sub-committee of nine being 

 especially trained to relieve them as the 

 classes increased in size. The work was 



carried through enthusiastically, and was 

 eminently successful. The object was not 

 to produce ornithologists, but to create 

 habits of exact observation and arouse 

 sympathetic interest in birds. The sections 

 of observers were made as small as possible 

 to facilitate the work. Pocket note books 

 were distributed, so that all the characteris- 

 tics of the birds could be taken down m the 

 field, and general classifications and other 

 points given by the heads of sections could 

 be put down for reference when the girls 

 went out to study by themselves. Blank 

 migration schedules from the Ornithological 

 Division of the Department of Agriculture 

 were supplied to those who cared to arrange 

 their notes themselves. 



Early in the season large supplies of 

 Audubon circulars and pamphlets were 

 placed in the college houses. 



At the May meeting, one of the natural- 

 ists of the town gave us an interesting talk 

 on nests, telling us where to find them, and 

 how to distinguish them. At the June 

 meeting, the president of the Society gave a 

 sketch of the life of Audubon, and this was 

 followed by a report of the work of the 

 term, which excited general discussion of 

 the notes made by the different members, 

 and was very entertaining. 



At the end of the first three months the 

 Society had eighty-nine members. Fifty of 

 these had been in the field, and twenty-three 

 handed in notes to be collaborated and sent 

 to the Department of Agriculture. Seventy- 

 six species of birds had been reported on; 

 fifty-six nests had been found, including 

 twenty-two kinds; and a great many inter- 

 esting and valuable notes had been col- 

 lected. The treasury held over twenty 

 dollars as the result of the twenty-five cent 

 membership fee. In the line of proselyting, 

 thousands of Audubon papers had been dis- 

 tributed, a society had been founded in 

 Kansas, and certainly a hundred outside 

 converts had been made. 



The summer vacation, bringing with it 



