Lawson—Thure Kumlien . 
677 
The following intimate and interesting letter, from its contents 
and date, is supposed to have been written to Dr. Brewer at 
Boston. In his correspondence Kumlien wrote each letter over 
twice, thus preserving a copy. If these copies could all be found 
now, one might easily write the intimate story of his life. 
“September 29th, 1856. Dear Sir! In hopes that during the summer I 
would obtain some more eggs and skins I have postponed writing to you. 
Never, it seems, did I get so small a lot of eggs and skins. True, I have 
been obliged to work at farming this season and that has hindered my 
egging and hunting operations to some extent, but when I have been out 
I have had very little success indeed. Some of my boys, that is, my egg- 
boys, have furnished any quantity that you don’t want and the prairie 
boys have been down with the smallpox during egg season. They had 
promised Prairie Lark eggs and eggs of the Lanius. The Lake that 2 
or 3 years back has been very high in summer has this summer been so 
low that, where I used to pick eggs of Gallinules, Black Terns, Wrens 
and Yellowheaded blackbirds it was perfectly dry and not a nest of those 
birds to be seen and but very small number of the birds themselves. I 
will mention what I have obtained of eggs and skins. 
Eggs. Sterna fissipes a few. 
Crex Carolinus 3 or 4. 
Rallus virg. 8. 
Rallus elegans 6. 
Muscicapa 3 eggs in the nest (I keep one); 
it may be nothing else but the wood pewee which it greatly resembles 
having under bill yellowish, but I think perhaps it is not. Wilson says 
the wood pew. eggs are white; those are white too, but on the place where 
the egg is thickest or rather a little nearer the big end is a ring of dark 
spots some large and some very small, a marking I think Wilson would 
have mentioned did those of the wood pew. have such marks. I have 
prepared skins of both the male & female. I think this bird not alto¬ 
gether rare here, I observed 2 more nests but could not get at them; they 
too were in Burr oaks but very high and out on the weakest limbs. I 
have found a nest of Muscicapa minima but the boy I had to climb the 
tree saw only 2 eggs so I concluded to wait a few days and get more 
eggs; some other boys learned where the nest was and in hopes of a 
good pay took the eggs and afterwards quarreling about their prey broke 
the eggs. This bird seemed not to be very rare this summer and I may 
have better luck another year. I have two eggs of Coccyz— erythroph- 
thalm —lot of Qwails—some Blue winged teals. This is about all except 5 
nests of small birds that I do not know for certain where they belong 
.If you think those eggs and skins are of sufficient value to 
send I will send them else I will keep them till another season in hopes 
of getting a greater variety and number. A few days ago I got Talco 
fuscus 2 & tennessee warbler 1, all skins. The warbler I procured last 
fall and could not then make out, is nothing else but S. icterocephala in 
immature plumage.Your obt. servant Thure Kumlien” C 20 ). 
