108 



THE 00 1. OQItt 



JOHN LEWIS CHILDS— AS I KNEW 

 HIM 



I first became acquainted with John 

 Lewis Childs in person on my return 

 from the West Coast in 1906, though I 

 had known liim tlirougli correspond- 

 ence previously. About this time he 

 wa's very active in completing his egg 

 and skin collection, and desired to se- 

 cure several species of North Ameri- 

 can birds that I had taken on my Mexi- 

 can trip, such as the Red-billed Tropic 

 bird, Brewster's and Blue-footed 

 Booby, Texan Kingfisher, etc. He 

 seemed so pleased to secure these 

 from me, that I asked him to visit me, 

 and in the fall of 1907 he came down 

 and spent two weeks with us. I was 

 then living on my farm on James 

 River, some eight miles from Newport 

 News, Virginia. He was run down 

 from over work when he arrived, but 

 after a few days, picked up to such an 

 extent that he insisted on splitting the 

 big chunks of pine wood for the 

 kitchen fire, and helping to bring in 

 the logs for the king heater and open 

 fire place in the den, where we 

 gathered daily to look at my collection 

 and talk over special birds, sets of 

 eggs, and incidents of the collecting 

 of same. He dropped in as a member 

 of the family so completely that first 

 visit, that we were always glad to have 

 him visit us at any time, and every 

 year since then, he has been with us 

 for a visit. One year he wanted to 

 take a set of Turkey Vulture eggs him- 

 self, so after one egg was laid in a 

 hollow poplar stump by one of my reg- 

 ular old 'standbys,' I telegraphed him 

 and he came down at once. We drove 

 the dayton carriage to within a few 

 feet of the tree and he had great fun 

 prying Mrs. Buzzard off the eggs with 

 a stick and out of the stump, before he 

 secured the two eggs. The incident 

 will always remain in my memory, 

 and never have I been looking over his 

 egg collection with him, but that he 



recalled that set of Buzzards. 



Mr. Childs was very fond of chil- 

 dren, and early each morning when 

 visiting us, would have all four of 

 mine in bed with him, telling them 

 stories. Probably one of the last let- 

 ters written by him just before leav- 

 ing Los Angeles was one to my young- 

 est boy, telling him how he enjoyed 

 the visit to us and wishing he could 

 have had him with him on his trip 

 to the West. 



Mr. Childs last visit to us was dur- 

 ing the holidays of 1920-21, arriving 

 December 27 and remaining until 

 January 5. It was his first trip to 

 the lower peninsula of Florida, 

 though he had visited the state be- 

 fore many times, and so carried 

 away was he with this section and 

 its nearness to New York, which 

 made it easy for him to run back and 

 forth, that he decided while here to 

 locate a test farm and a winter home 

 here. At the time of Mr. Childs' 

 death, the writer had an option on 

 the greater part of Mr. Childs' col- 

 lections, which were to be joined with 

 his in the starting of the new Miami 

 Beach Museum of National History. 

 While Mr. Barnes has stated in his 

 obituary of Mr. Childs in the Oologist, 

 page 414, April 1921 that "the corner 

 stone of Mr. Childs' collection was 

 Miss Gene Bell's Collection of Phila- 

 delphia," this was somewhat mislead- 

 ing, for Mr. Childs had disposed of 

 nearly all of the collection early ' in 

 the game, and had built up almost a 

 new collection entirely. The old 

 timers in the Oologist game will 

 easily recall the disrepute the Gene 

 Bell collection got into, and Mr. Childs 

 and I often discussed certain sets 

 and their collectors, while we were 

 visiting each other. He destroyed 

 several sets on my recommendation, 

 for he knew that I had met personal- 

 ly and seen practically all the best 

 private collectors and their collec- 



