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 Mar., 1913 WILLIAM LEON DAWSON--A BIOGRAPHY 69 and which he has no intention of parting with; deriving his pleasure from the faulty attempts of others less fortunately situated, along the same line of study. The mistakes sometimes made from a too hasty acceptanc e of first impressions seem of small moment compared with what may be endured through the peculfar temperament of this type of student. "It is better to play ball, even if you make a wild throw once in awhile, than it is to sit on the bleachers and carp at the players". .4LL.4N BROOKS--AN APPRECIATION By WILLIAM LEON DAWSON WITH PORTRAIT ROOKS is sitting right now at the great north window of our studio at "Los Colibris", whither we have succeeded in luring him for the winter. His high stool is drawn up to a large work table, where he is alternately poring over a handful of bird-skins and sketching with swift, deft fingers an im- aginary spray full of very real Warblers. He doesn't in the least suspect what I am going to do to him, and I am feeling somewhat guilty as well as very solemn in this most traitorous act of friendship. It is perfectly certain though that I shall catch it when he does find out, for he is, above all things else, a modest man, and would shrink from even the mellow light of T CoN)Ol's pages. Along the east wall of the studio stretches a length of burlap whereon are hung the latest products of the artist's skill, and I slip over once in a while to gloat over them all, or to make moues at the latest arrival, with all the easy as- surance and something of the honest pride bf the family doctor. Just now the Dwarf Hermit Thrush is paying court to a Flammulated Screech O'wi, and the Elegant Tern is considering whether the Allen Hummer hard by would not make an elegant mouthful. In my opinion he would, for he is a quivery morsel of fire, alive in every iridescent vane. And it is first of all because these birds live, live and breathe and flaunt their feathers in our faces, that the life story of their re-cre- ator is worth telling. Allan Brooks was born of English parents on the t5th day of February, 869, in Ettavah, India. His father, William Edwin Brooks, was a civil engi- neer in charge of construction on the East Indian Railway. Ornithology was the father's hobby, and young Allan took to it almost from infancy. Although he was removed at the age of five to the home land, as practically all European chil- dren must be to escape the unaccustomed diseases of a deadly climate, he remem- bers vividly many of the Indian birds, and articles in Stray Feathers, to which his father was a leading contributor. Left to the various mercies of seven maiden aunts, the youthful Allan chewed and eschewed the catechism, attended school, robbed birds' nests, and early at.:l irrevocably decided against matrimony. While other boys were playing cricket, he was roaming the hills, and by the time his fellows had mastered hazing he had learned the birds of England. In 88 the father returned to England after twenty-eight years' service in In- dia, and almost immediately thereafter conducted his family of six members to On- tario, where Allah's mother died. The next six years were divided between farm- work, school, and the formation of an extensive collection of bird-skins. By rare good fortune there was at hand a full kit of brushes and water-colors, a heritage of the father's really creditable but self-depreciated years of effort. Young Allan