4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Crum creeks were also haunts of his, and the Lazaretto Woods 

 on Tinicum ("the Lazarette, " he used to call it). Lin wood 

 (Marcus Hook) near the Delaware state line, was another place 

 he used to tramp over. I have known him to walk all the way 

 out to the Clifton Woods and back again day after day during 

 the height of the spring migration. He sold very few of the 

 specimens he got on these trips and in the later years of his 

 life he was much straightened for money, but still he would 

 tramp far afield for the pure love of it. He had a wonderful 

 eye for birds and a quick ear for their notes, but that was not 

 remarkable since he spent his whole life in their pursuit. He 

 was an entirely unlettered man and had many curious notions 

 and expressions. I remember one day in the autumn many 

 years ago, when I was loafing with him in his shop, he forboded 

 a winter of great sickness because Red-headed Woodpeckers had 

 appeared in unusually large numbers in the country about 

 Philadelphia. "I never knew it to fail", he said. This is 

 probably a remnant of some old folklore. In his earlier youth 

 " Chris " Wood had collected birds in Panama and had suffered 

 from an attack of Chagres fever. When only sixteen years of 

 age he enlisted in the Rush Lancers (during the Civil War), so 

 he told me, and was in several desperate cavalry charges. 



The last I saw of " Chris" was the year I entered Swarth- 

 more College (1889). The college collection of birds needed 

 overhauling and I got him to come out and put the mounted 

 specimens in shape. He seemed downcast and in poor health. 

 The date of his death I do not know ; it was not long after this, 

 perhaps a year or so. I was busy at the college and do not 

 remember having gone to his shop after that year. He had 

 hardly reached the middle years of life when he died. He was 

 altogether an interesting personality — a genial, kindly soul, and 

 I owe him now many pleasant memories. Where his grave is I 

 do not know, but wherever it may be, surely that exquisite, 

 though forgotten verse of the poet Gray would be a fitting 

 elegy- 

 There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, 



By hands unseen are show'rs of violets found ; 

 The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 



And little footsteps lightly print the ground. 



