DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 3 



quite reasonable in his charges. He had little of the artistic in- 

 stinct and his specimens were rather conventional mounts, but 

 they came pretty close to the natural form and characteristics of a 

 species. He was a fast and skilful worker and would strip the 

 skin off a small bird, dose it with arsenic and push in the 

 cotton while he talked away — one bird after another in quick 

 succession — and the skins were all remarkably good, quite free 

 from blemishes of any sort. I do not remember if he tied the 

 wings — I think not in many of the smaller kinds — and he never 

 wrapped them in any way to dry into form, just gave each one 

 a few dextrous pinches and tossed it on the counter. Yet, as 

 I say, they were all good skins. 



"Chris" had no technical knowledge of birds. I doubt if 

 he knew anything about genera, or what such a thing as a genus 

 meant. He had that primitive sort of knowledge about birds 

 that was characteristic of the early field naturalists — botanists, 

 ornithologists and entomologists alike. It was a lively interest 

 in the differences between one kind of animal and another, a 

 curiosity about habits and distribution of species, a native love 

 for color and form, and a very deep-seated feeling for the back- 

 ground — woods and fields and streams. I imagine this was 

 Audubon's attitude of mind, tinged with his artistic tempera- 

 ment, and also Alexander Wilson's to a large extent, influenced 

 by his poetical nature. Neither of these persons were what we 

 of to-day would call strictly "scientific". The Bartrams, 

 Townsend and Nuttall were probably men of the same type. 

 "Chris" was neither artist nor poet visibl}^, but though he 

 never expressed himself, no one knows what inward satisfaction 

 possessed his soul, for as Stevenson has said " the ground of a 

 man's joy is often hard to hit". 



When the migration was on, "Chris" was out everyday. 

 The Clifton Woods on the ridge to the right of the old West 

 Chester railroad, between what are now the stations of Primos 

 and Secane (then Oak Lane and Spring Hill) was a favorite 

 collecting ground of his. I have passed by these woods every 

 day for the last thirty years. They have been much thinned 

 out, and their southern side opened up for building, but the 

 sight of them often evokes a memory of " Chris ". Darby and 



