Fortunately there is no hurry about installing the collection at the 
Museum though no doubt they will be glad to see it under the Museum roof. 
Sammy especially will hail its advent as one more step rowards the preem¬ 
inence of bthe Msuem bird collection which already must be somewhere near the| 
top.By the way Palmer surprosed me the other day by telling me that Owighfc>s 
oolleotion has reached the fifty thousand mark.I had no idea ofl it,having, 
indeed, never having sfeen it or asked any questions about it.That of course 
upposd 
will go to the American Museum,and a mighty valuable gift it will be.I s 
the birds are ohiefly North American and principally EJnited States. 
I have had no word from Srinnell since I last wrote him,and presume he 
is looking up ways and means.I still have hopes that he will conclude the 
better plan is to return the manuscript and let me find a way to publish it 
here or,perhaps better still,to let it lapse till a fee years later when I 
shall have nothning to say about it.Nelson and I were talking the other day 
about the possibility of your attempting something of the sort.What a per¬ 
fectly stunning thing you might write.?ou have had to do with practically all 
the working ornithologists of your time in this country to say nothing of a 
number of interesting men aor-oss the aater.and the letters you might give and 
the personal accounts you could write about the men gone before would trans¬ 
cend in interest anything any one else oould attempt,Allen soaroely touched tl 
this field,and I am nob sure that this was not a mistake since the little 
he gave is replete with interest.Coues for instance was easily the most inter-l 
esting onnithologist of his time,and were each if his contemporaries to contri| 
ute hid might even then the whole would be hardly adequate to set forth the 
nature and methods of the man.Saoh one knew a littlejno one knew muoh.I might 
have given more than I did,especially about his work methods. 
