4 
THE CONDOR 
I VOL. V 
In his active life, so filled and rounded with meritorious deeds, Mr. Barlow 
was loath to lay aside his work, even when the manifestations of the dread dis- 
ease with which he was stricken should have counseled him to slacken his pace. 
When with him last summer in the Sierra, I urged him to lay aside all extra work 
and care for his health. He would be all right again soon, he said — all he need- 
ed was a little time. 
After a brief but happy outing he returned to his duties as assistant cashier 
in the Santa Clara Valley Bank, where he labored on for nearly two months, still 
deceived as to the seriousness of his condition. When his employers finally 
obliged him to knock off work he went with his wife to Pacific Grove, hoping 
that the change would lead to an improvement. The end was not far distant, but 
he never seemed to realize it, and as he suffered no pain his own cheerfulness 
lulled the fears of those dear to him. To the last he was hopeful. 
A week before his death he declared to Mr. Emerson that by the next week, 
surely, he would be able to take up the accumulated correspondence of the club, 
to which he had always attended so faithfully. He would not admit that he was 
ill enough to require another to take hold of the work or even assist him with it. 
WBien the end came, rather suddenly, his passing was peaceful, and fifteen min- 
utes before, he had been helped up and had been sitting in a chair. In a beauti- 
ful rural spot, where perchance the white-tailed kite, of which he loved to tell us, 
may alight in the huge spreading live oaks about his grave, he lies at rest. 
It will take some time to realize that he has taken his final journey : that 
he who dis.seminated, so lavishly, kindliness, good cheer and fellowship; he whose 
cordial welcome and smile and jest added warmth and happiness to the meetings 
of our bird students, has really gone out of our life — a little farther on than we 
have traveled, and beyond the barrier o’er which we may not see, nor, hearkening 
hear a far “Halloo!” the jovial call of him who was our faithful comrade, our gen- 
ial companion on many a woodland trail, through brake and fen, on the islands of 
the sea, or in mountain fastnesses where he loved to roam and ponder; where the 
birds are singing and calling, and in the silence wondering, mayhap, why he comes 
no more to those fair scenes he loved so well. 
Now that we muse upon the personality of our good friend, from whom in the 
high administration of an omniscient Providence we have .so soon and so sadly been 
parted, none can think of liim, it is safe to say, save as one in a happy, cheerful 
mood. The mere mention of his name, the superscription of an old letter, recalls 
inevitably a smiling face, an occasion of good-humored banter; or, perhaps, one 
with quiet, intent manner, cheerful, unfailingly courteous, and eager of accom- 
plishing an end. It is as a prince of good fellows that we love to remember Bar- 
low, yet we admired his earnest bearing, his equable poise of character, and won- 
dered at the seemingly boundless energy which influenced all his undertakings. 
Scarcely more than a dozen years were devoted to studies in Ornithology 
before his bright career was brought to a close at the age of twenty-eight. From 
early excursions into the lore of birds, which aside from his home life and his 
friends was ever the subject dearest to him, he soon passed the experimental or 
juvenile stage and devoted himself assiduously in his leisure to the advancement 
of Ornithology on this Coast. 
Of the work he has done, the value of his researches, it is not within the 
province of the present writer here to speak. Rather is it his high privilege to 
touch upon the life and personality of one whom, in the intimate intercourse of 
our club meetings, during a decade which has sped all too quickly, we feel it an 
