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Mr. Deane’s habit of keeping in touch with ornithological news 
through correspondence evidently began early and one of its results was 
the forming of new contacts with men who soon became warm personal 
friends. This is illustrated by Dr. A. K. Fisher, who writes: “My first 
acquaintance with Mr. Deane came through correspondence which was 
prompted by a note that I published in the American Naturalist in 1875 
on the occurrence of a rare warbler. In a letter which was received after 
this informal introduction, he told me of the plan which was being carried 
out by the young ornithologists at Cambridge of publishing a journal of | 
ornithology which would begin with January, 1876. He seemed very en- 
thusiastic over the plate of the Brewster Warbler which was to appear 
as a frontispiece of the journal which subsequently was merged into 
The Auk when the American Ornithologists’ Union was formed. I did 
not meet him personally until the spring of 1879, when he called at the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons, which was the beginning of an 
endearing friendship.” 
One of Deane’s earliest associates 1n Cambridge was C. J. Maynard, 
who writes as follows: “One spring day about 1867, when I was placing 
some mounted birds that I had furnished for study in a cabinet in the 
Kendall School on Appian Way, Cambridge, and some of the boys were 
gathered about watching me and asking questions or making comments, 
one of them remarked that he had seen a Woodcock in a marsh or open 
meadow that morning. Thinking it was rather unusual to see a bird of 
this species in an open section during the daytime, I said, ‘Are you sure 
it was not a Snipe?’ Quick as a flash the boy erred ‘Don’t you 
suppose I know a W oodcock from a Sniper” 
“That boy was Ruthven Deane, as I knew a few days later when I 
was introduced to him by our mutual friend, William Brewster. Deane 
and I soon became fast friends and from his very evident knowledge of 
birds I soon became convinced that he did indeed know a Woodcock 
from a Snipe. Some time later, when Mr. Deane had begun his business 
career, there was scarcely a Sunday when he did not drive out to my 
laboratory in Newton to have a chat about birds and to tell me the 
ornithological news which he had a marvelous faculty of gathering. | 
always looked forward to his visits with pleasure. 
“Upon my return from a trip to southern Florida, in June, 1871, I 
found a letter from Messrs. Brewster and Deane who were then at 
Upton, Maine, on Lake Umbagog, on a collecting trip, asking me to join 
them there, as birds were very abundant. I gladly accepted this invitation 
and found that birds were indeed abundant and we secured many 
valuable specimens, learning much of the avifauna of that section. 
“T am, however, reminded of one disagreeable feature of that trip by 
a letter recently received from Mr. Deane under date of Jan. 17, 1925. 
After speaking of the appearance of Part 1 of Mr. Brewster’s “ Birds of 
Umbagog,” he says: ‘What an age ago it seems when we were in that 
