Mar., 1918 IN MEMORIAM: LYMAN BELDING 53 



"When I was about seven years old, our family moved to Kingston, Wyom- 

 ing Valley, Pennsylvania. The mountains surrounding the valley were well 

 timbered, and in autumn the frost colored the foliage rich golden and scarlet, 

 something we never see in California, excepting a few scattered trees and 

 plants that are tinted by the frosts of autumn in the High Sierras. 



"My happiest hunting days were in autumn. The passenger pigeon was 

 very common, and its cheerful ete-tete-tete — , as it rattled down acorns upon 

 which it was feeding, was delicious music to me. I have seen millions of pigeons 

 in a single day in spring, when after their usual northern migration, they were 

 driven back by a cold storm. 



' ' One morning early, I was on Ross Hill near Kingston, looking for a deer, 

 the track of which I had seen in the snow the previous day. Soon after the sun 

 appeared, millions and millions of pigeons flew south over the valley. The 

 flight continued into the afternoon, when patches of bare ground began to ap- 

 pear affording the pigeons feeding grounds. When driven south by cold spring 

 storms, the north branch of the Susquehanna River was a favorite route. The 

 following day I saw the deer I was looking for. It appeared to be pure white, 

 though I was too far from it to be positive. It swam the river and landed about 

 a mile below Wilkesbarre, and was shot by two hunters who appeared to be 

 hunting quail. 



"Before I got a gun I often wandered in the woods, sometimes getting 

 home late in the evening and on one occasion my parents had looked in the open 

 well and other places for me. 



"When I got a gun I was out early and late with it, neglecting school, 

 though I worked faithfully on our farm where the crops needed me, excepting 

 when chestnuts were ripe on the hills I would occasionally steal away and go to 

 the hills for chestnuts. 



"I must have been a very unpromising boy, but was enjoying life and gain- 

 ing strength and endurance, just what I needed, being naturally frail. I was 

 in a cobbler's shop with some boy companions and told them I intended to go 

 west and hunt buffalo when I got big enough. The cobler said, 'You will 

 never leave this valley as long as your head is hot.' This cobbler's partner 

 said: 'A boy with a gun and fiddle would never amount to much.' I had both 

 a gun and a fiddle. Fortunately I was an excellent reader and we had some 

 good books. 



"I read with great interest Rollins' Ancient History, Josephus' description 

 of the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus and was especially in- 

 terested in successful warring expeditions like those of Alexander the Great. I 

 did not then realize the horrors of war. Later, when my sister was in Paris and 

 wrote me of the Louvre, and also mentioned Napoleon Bonaparte, I replied that 

 I would rather have been Shakespeare than Napoleon. I no longer admired 

 military heroes.' ' 



When a boy, he relates that he subscribed for Alexander's Messenger, a 

 Philadelphia weekly, and greatly admired its crude wood-cuts. He had an am- 

 bition to be an artist, and while still quite young he had a box of water-colors, 

 and could draw horses, deer, and other animals and objects. 



In the winter he caught bob-whites by falling lengthwise, on his back, upon 

 the soft snow and packing it upon them after they had plunged into it at the 

 end of a flight. Later, when about sixteen years old, while hunting near Har- 

 vey's Lake, a deep mountain lake surrounded by virgin forest, he narrates that 



