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almost occult, he is always the first to know of any slight happening to 
any of the eternity of bird lovers. If one suffers an illness, has a business 
reverse, acquires a sudden fortune, gets married or Aimenceds has an 
addition to his family or changes his residence from one street to another, 
Deane may be depended upon to have the information forthwith, not 
only as to the main facts but also as to the causes, accessories and 
implications. 
The Illinois Audubon Society has especial reason to appreciate and to 
honor Ruthven Deane, for, more than any other man, he has from the 
beginning had the relation to it of parent, guardian, and guide. For six- 
teen years he was its President and during that time it grew, prospered 
and became firmly established. His popularity and his devotion to the 
Society caused him to be re-elected year after year from 1898 until 1g14, 
and after retirement from office he has continued active in the Society’s 
interest and jealous of its welfare. To detail his work in this connection 
would be practically to give a history of the Society. 
Probably if Mr. Deane were to write his reminiscences, the early col- 
lecting days and the friendships of those times would loom larger in it 
than later achievements. Those friendships have never been permitted 
to grow cold and the associates of youth have been warmly cherished in 
spite of separation and changing circumstances. Some of the best loved 
of them, notably William Brewster, who had great influence upon Deane 
as a boy, have now passed away. In his “Birds of the Cambridge 
Region,” Brewster does not fail to recall his especial collecting compan- 
ions and one of his pages gives such a beautiful picture of Deane’s early 
surroundings that it may well be quoted here. 
“Some of the pleasantest recollections of my boyhood relate to the 
country traversed by Vassar Lane, and extending west and east from 
the site of the old Cambridge reservoir at the junction of Reservoir and 
Highland Streets to Fresh Pond, and north and south from Concord 
Avenue nearly to Brattle Street. Through this area, now so thickly 
settled, there was not then a building of any kind. Most of the land was 
occupied by broad, smooth mowing lands; hobbly and, in places, boggy 
pastures; and fine old apple orchards, many acres in extent. There were 
also one or two bushy swamps, several groves of large oaks, a conspicuous 
cluster of tall white pines, a few isolated shell-bark hickories of the finest 
proportions, and a number of scraggy wild apple trees. There the dande- 
lions and buttercups were larger and yellower, the daisies whiter and 
more numerous, the jingling melody of the Bobolink blither and merrier, 
the early spring shouting of the flicker louder and more joyous, and ave 
long-drawn whistle of the meadow-lark sweeter and more plaintive than 
they ever have been or ever can be elsewhere, at least in my experience. 
It was here that I spent most of my school holidays in the early sixties 
collecting birds in company with Daniel C. French, now an eminent 
sculptor, or with Ruthven Deane, the well-known ornithologist. In early 
