34 THE -AUDU BON EULE Ea 

spring we pursued the shy Redwings from tree to tree or beat the wet 
hollows for Wilson’s Snipe, often flushing the latter birds by scores, but 
only very rarely and by the merest chance bringing one to bag. The mi- 
grating Warblers, Vireos, Sparrows, Flycatchers, etc., which frequented 
the orchards and scattered groves and thickets later in the season, proved 
easier of capture and supplied us with many a specimen whose novel 
beauty or imagined rarity thrilled our youthful senses with wonder and 
delight.” , 
Another of Deane’s boyhood friends, Henry W. Henshaw, writes: 
“There are not many whose acquaintance with Ruthven Deane goes 
back so far as mine and I can recall many happy days spent in his com- 
pany in the forest and swamp searching for birds. It 1s a far ery back to 
the time of the sixties when Ruthven Deane, Henry Purdie, and other 
boys, including myself, collected birds in Vassar Lane, Cambridge. 
“Fresh Pond, too, with its broad expanse and mirror-like surface had 
its special attractions at all times of the year, but especially in fall, when 
migrating water birds in good numbers tarried here on their way south 
for rest and food. Both Deane and Brewster owned skiffs on the pond, 
were very skillful with the oar and paddle, and daybreak often found the 
twain afloat and endeavoring with varying success to outwit the wary 
ducks and geese. 
“T recall an experience of our collecting days which we considered 
then a good joke on Ruthven Deane. He and I had found the nest of a 
Red-tailed Hawk, a capital prize at that time, which was built in the 
top of a tall and venerable oak. As I never was an adept at ‘shinning a 
tree, Ruthven was elected to do the climbing, at which he was past 
master. He had progressed well up towards the nest when suddenly we 
heard the near-by call of a Great Crested Flycatcher, a rare bird in our 
experience and which, indeed, I had never seen up to that time. Thus 
suspended between heaven and earth, 40 or $0 feet up a slippery tree 
trunk, Ruthven was unable to do anything more than hang on, and 
watch my successful efforts to stalk and collect the rarity while he voiced 
his opinion of my reprehensible conduct in thus taking advantage of a 
brother collector. 
‘There were no Audubon Societies in those days and our bags were 
limited solely by our sense of the fitness of things, but we never indulged 
in slaughter. I am sure that all told the series we collected made no 
appreciable difference locally in the number of birds. It would be diffi- 
cult, however, to overestimate the pleasure we derived in adding to our 
series an occasional rarity, and the zest we took in hunting for nests and 
in studying the habits of our common birds. In those and subsequent 
years were laid the foundations of the ornithological knowledge which in 
various ways was to lend effective aid to the movement for the preserva- 
tion of bird life, and which found its highest expression in such organiza- 
tions as the Audubon Society of Illinois.”’ 
