2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



upon me by a circumstance which showed the peculiar streak of 

 realism that often runs through minds of such men as " Chris ". 

 He owned a dog — a white and orange-blotched English setter 

 called "Prince," in which betook great pride. I persuaded 

 my father to paint a small portrait of this dog, for which ' 'Chris' ' 

 would give me a considerable number of bird skins. The dog, 

 of course, was the prominent feature in the picture, but father 

 painted in the middle background the small figure of a man 

 with a gun, hardly more than an inch or so in height, which 

 "Chris" took to be a portrait of himself and complained that 

 the eyes of this man in the picture were dark (they were mere 

 little pin-point spots), while his were blue. He was further 

 dissatisfied with the shading on the dog's belly, saying that he 

 always kept "Prince" very clean and the picture showed him 

 to be dirty where he should be snow-white. 



' ' Chris ' ' lived in a small house on the north side of Market 

 Street west of Thirty-fourth. His taxidermic shop, on the 

 ground floor front, I can still see perfectly, and it had a 

 smell peculiarly its own. I can see it again whenever I get a 

 whifE of raw bird-flesh and arsenic. Back of a counter, littered 

 with the materials of his craft, stood "Chris," in a cardigan 

 jacket, skinning birds. I can see him very clearly as I write 

 this — always cheerful and friendly to the boy who must have 

 bothered him many times. I am somewhat hazy as to a row 

 of glass-door cases, containing mounted specimens back of 

 where he stood, but there were drawers under the cases — deep 

 drawers filled with bird-skins thrown in helter-skelter without 

 labels. Mrs. ' ' Chris, ' ' a short darkish woman, used to urge 

 " Chris " to " laybil " his specimens, but " Chris " knew where 

 each one had been taken and the approximate date, so he said, 

 and I believe that he was fairly accurate, though there were 

 several hundred bird-skins in those drawers. I used to spend 

 afternoons rummaging among these specimens and bought a 

 good many, some very interesting ones. Twenty-five cents was 

 the price for a fairly common species of small bird, though I 

 paid him ten dollars for the hybrid swallow which I had de- 

 scribed. " Chris " did a fairly good business, I think, mounting 

 birds that were brought to him by sportsmen, and he was always 



