Page:Condor5(1).djvu/8

 6 THE CONDOR I VoL. V his delight to render hard, personal service in the club's behalf, and he left to others the nominal honors. As President he' would have served well, and it would have given him pleasure, but if the thought occurred to him he putit aside .with the unselfish feeling that his place was where the club most needed him. At the last meeting of the Cooper Club, held not long before his death, he was nomin- ated for the Presidency of the club for x9o 3, an office he now can never hold. The writer well recalls, amid a host of pleasant reminiscences, how he first had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Barlow in San Jose in the summer of x893, but a few months after the Cooper Ornithological Club had been started by a few en- thusiastic and youthful bird students of that vicinity. I was about to launch the 2Vidologist at Alameda, and hearing in some way of the club in Santa Clara coun- ty made the trip with a view to forming a sort of coalition. I found that the club had six or seven members all told, but they were very much alive, among them being Chester Barlow, Wilfred H. Osgood, Harry R. Painton and Mr. Schneider. I attended a meeting at Paintoh's house at College Park after spending the day with Barlow and Osgood, and joined the club. The "Traveler and Naturalist," an unpretentious journal printed on a small hand press some where, was to have been made the official organ of the bird club, but the seven members voted unanimously in favor of adopting the "Nid." Thereafter the "Traveler and Naturalist," having lost the block of seven subscribers constitut- ing the Cooper Club's membership ceased its travels, pined and died. At that early meeting the discussion of exchange deals in eggs, made with certain eastern collectors by Osgood, Barlow and Schneider, and jovial collecting reminiscences, not to forget a generous collation, succeeded the "reading of scien- tific papers," among which, if I mistake not, there was one by Mr. Osgood on the "Nesting of the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher." That meeting was a red-letter occa- sion for the present writer, and led to a frequent correspondence with Mr. Barlow, then editor of the club's department in the 2Vidologist, which continued uninter- rupted with mutual profit and enjoyment through the years, cementing a friend- ship in ties which became indissoluble, and which promised so much of happiness through life. The relations of the club and-the ornithological journal I then published, carried on through the medium of the genial Secretary, were always most pleas- ant, and proved helpful to the club and to the journal. The members early showed a cheerful disposition to aid the editor with photographs for illustration and with entertaining articles. Barlow wrote an article on the nidification of the cinnamon teal and the mallard duck. Schneider had a fine picture of a mallard's nest and eggs, but it seems he had promised it to the Oologist. It was in silu, and just what I wanted. Barlow and Osgood "labored" with Schneider and finally induced him to "loosen up" and supply the club's official organ with the coveted photograph, which after publication I ascertained was of a "home made" nest, which had been cunningly formed by Mr. Schneider himseli in the grass near his house for photographic purposes. How many good times we had at Barlow's home in San Jose! In those days when he was unmarried, and afterward in his pretty cottage at Santa Clara where his charming wife joined in extending hospitality to "bird cranks," his latch-string was always out for the "boys," and visiting ornithologists in the State were glad of an opportunity to seek out the Mecca of our bird students, where a cordial wel- come was ever extended. Barlow always "expected" his friends. No special invitation was necessary.