30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



pering away with his slap-jack. He finally hit it, and then we 

 walked back to my home in the city and made a skin of it that 

 evening. On another occasion, one September morning, Collins 

 shot a Philadelphia Vireo from among some willows on the 

 breast of an old dam near his Frankford home. In September 

 of the following year, I shot another of this species at a spot not 

 a quarter of a mile from where Collins captured his bird. This 

 was rather remarkable for a species quite rare in this region. 

 In those days the Dickcissels used to nest in certain fields of 

 timothy and clover about the farm (we called them Black- 

 throated Buntings). Collins and I each got several specimens^ 

 but we did not realize how limited was their eastern distribution 

 or how soon they were to vanish from this localit3^ In May 

 and June the dry, monotonous note of the bird could be heard 

 all day long from fence rail or telegraph wire along the road 

 near these fields. Among many interesting birds secured by 

 Collins in his neighborhood were a female Blue Grosbeak and a 

 Mourning Warbler, the former taken in the fall of 1879. The 

 winter of that year (January and February) was remarkable for 

 great numbers of Ked-poll Linnets, of which Collins secured a 

 goodly lot. Through Collins I first heard of S. N. Rhoads, of 

 Haddonfield, N. J., an enthusiastic young ornithologist whose 

 early promise has been amply fulfilled. He it was who first re- 

 ported the nesting of the Blue-winged Yellow Warbler in Chester 

 County, Pa., as an early contribution to the ''Nuttall Bulle- 

 tin. ' ' George Spencer Morris rose on my horizon a little later^ 

 though I did not meet him for some years. Both of these orni- 

 thologists have made valuable collections, much of Rhoads' ma- 

 terial being now in the collection of the Academy. William L^ 

 Baily I have known from boyhood, but he was not inoculated 

 with the bird fever until the days when he was a student at 

 Haverford College. I know that he made a good collection, 

 but later dropped the gun for the camera, with which he has 

 "fy done such splendid work. William L. Abbot^ I also knew as a 

 ' frequenter of the Academy, a good field ornithologist and old 

 time collector. I met him one day in the fall of 1890 and told 

 him that I had a fine baby bo3\ He retorted that he had a fine 

 elephant gun and was just starting for East Africa after big 



