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 Bulletin of the Cooper Ornithological Club.

Vol. 2. No. 1. 

A Part of My Experience in Collecting.

BY LYMAN BELDING URING the spring of 1876 I secured a volume of California Ornithology and began industriously to collect and identify the birds of this state. I had been an ardent sportsman ever since I was a small boy and had supposed that I knew most of the birds, but my first bird book astonished me with many I did not know and had never heard of. I had never met an ornithologist or oologist and did not know there were any in California. I had met several persons who could mount birds and I had mummified and mounted some, but I soon found that a mummy was not a joy forever if it was a thing of beauty when first mounted. I had no difficulty in identifying my specimens, but in order to be sure my identifications were correct, I sent specimens to Washington for Mr. Ridgway's opinion.

He and Prof. Baird gave me kind encouragement and Mr. Ridgway was very patient and prompt in writing long, interesting letters concerning the specimens I had sent. I was given many valuable books from the National Library, after which Prof. Baird sent me a catalogue of the publications it contained and told me to ask for anything I wanted. I was very grateful for these kind attentions and my zeal do not think this kind encouragement was exceptional, for I think Profs. Baird and Ridgway were always glad to assist the student of natural history.

My success in identifying specimens was due, partly, to my already knowing many of the species and partly to the excellence of Baird's descriptions in California Ornithology and Vol. IX, Pacific R. R. Reports, and again, partly because many sub-species had not yet been recognized. I was sometimes materially assisted by Wilson's simple descriptions. Fortunately, my California Ornithology contained uncolored plates. I found more pleasure in identifying strange birds than in anything else, except, perhaps, collecting in the Sierra Nevadas. I need not explain this to those who love the woods and mountains. I never went on a collecting trip, especially the long ones, without taking some of my most needed books, and Vol. IX was always one of them.

In the spring of 1881, Messrs. Baird and Ridgway requested me to visit Guadalupe Island, and a sum of money was promised for 80 skins of the island birds. I went to San Diego intending to go to Guadalupe, but several persons who had been there sealing, advised me not to go. Mr. W. W. Stewart told me of Dr. Edward Palmer's experience for the work was greatly stimulated. I there, who, with his son Harry Stewart, had nearly starved on the island