ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 



13 



Mrs. Robert Ridgway 



A Sketch 



Julia Evelyn Perkins was born in New York City, and until 

 her fifteenth year lived in a house facing Central Park, where 

 she first saw and became interested in birds. Her father was 

 a wood-engraver, and at the time of moving with his family to 

 Washington, D. C, was engaged in engraving wood-cuts to illus- 

 trate a "History of North American Birds, " by Baird, Brewer 

 and Ridgway — his removal to Washington being for the purpose 

 of being more conveniently located for his work. 



While residing in New York it was Miss Evelyn's custom to 

 make frequent visits to Central Park to observe and feed the 

 birds ; thus from early childhood she developed a deep love 

 for our feathered friends. She also took great interest in 

 her father's work, and assisted him materially by making 

 proofs from the blocks which he 

 had engraved. This was a spe- 

 cial pleasure to her, and I have 

 been informed ("on good auth- 

 ority") that the pleasure became 

 greater after she became ac- 

 quainted with the junior author 

 of the work which the engrav- 

 ings were to illustrate, and to 

 whom she was married on Oc- 

 tober twelfth, 1875. 



Mrs. Ridgway 's love for birds 

 has never flagged, and all her 

 life she has been active, to the 

 best of her opportunities, in 

 their behalf. When we lived in 

 a suburb of Washington she 

 often returned from a visit to 

 friends in the city or from a 

 shopping trip with one or more 

 "bean-shooters" or "nigger-kill- 

 ers," once with a pocketful, 

 taken from boys who had been 

 using these juvenile implements of destruction with birds as 

 their targets. On one occasion she had taken three from some 

 boys in one of the city parks, and on indignantly dis- 

 playing them to a park policeman whom she hunted up, he said 

 to her: "Madame, you ought to be appointed on the force. We 

 uniformed policeman are helpless, because the boys know our 

 beats and can easily spot us at a distance. " On another occa- 

 sion she attempted to take a bean-shooter away from a good- 

 sized negro boy, who grabbed her by both wrists and held her in 

 a vise-like grip until frightened by an approaching pedestrian. 



MRS. ROBERT RIDGWAY 



