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 164 Vol. XX FRANK STEPHENS--AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY WITH PHOTO HE EDITOR of THr, CONDOR is planning to publish a series of autobiogra- phies of the older ornithologists of the west. He insists that I initiate the series, and promises to get others to follow. I do not like the task, but as 1 see some justice in his argument that I begin the series, I will "do my bit" I was born in a log house on a farm in Livingston County, New York, April 2, 1849. As a small boy I attended a country school pretty regularly until Fig. 33. FaA.K STEPHENS. thirteen years old, when the falnily noved to Michigan. After this time my school days were few. I never attended other than country. schools and not even these after I was sixteen years old. Among my boyhood recollections those pertaining to the Civil War then in progress are prominent. The drain of men to supply the army was so great that every one's help was needed, so that by the time I was fifteen years old I was taldng a man's place in the fields to the extent that I was able. I remember following the reaper in the wheat field when the binding crew consisted of two of us "men" and four young women.