STUDENT DAYS 41 



of West Newton, Ernest Ingersoll, C. J. Maynard, 

 and a few others, and then we definitely formed a 

 club for the study of birds, which met weekly at 

 William Brewster's house. We called it " The 

 Nuttall Ornithological Club " after the eminent 

 ornithologist. The club still exists in Cambridge, 

 and is the parent of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union. 



This college year passed much as the one be- 

 fore, except that my knowledge of birds had 

 become wider. The material obtained in Plain- 

 field gave me duplicates so that I could exchange 

 with both Henshaw and Brewster, who had small 

 collections of bird skins. 



In the next vacation a great delight awaited 

 me. A school friend of my mother had married 

 William H. Edwards, a naturalist, who was par- 

 ticularly interested in insects and more especially 

 in butterflies. My mother had kept up a rather 

 desultory correspondence with her friend, and in 

 an interchange of letters in the spring, an invita- 

 tion was extended to me to visit the family and 

 spend the coming vacation at their home. They 

 had formerly lived at Newburgh, on the Hudson, 

 and I had been there once ; but after the Civil War 

 Mr. Edwards became engaged in coal-mining in 

 West Virginia, and removed to the Kanawha Val- 

 ley, locating at the town of Coalburg, where he 

 had extensive mines which were being worked. 



