70 THE CONDOR Vol. XXl way. The only tbne that I ever saw her willingly show herself to a bird was when she heard a Veery Thrush give its cry of alarm. She was seated in a com- fortable piazza rocking chair at the moment, but sprang up and waded ankle deep through the soft plowed ground of a wide field between the house and the - woods to go to its rescue. Ordinarily when we went to the woods, she would steal in through the bushes in her leaf-colored gown, open her camp-stool cautiously at the foot of a tree whose dark trunk would help conceal her, pull down a branch before her and, with note-book ready, carefully raise her opera-glass and focus it upon the nest she wanted to study. And there she would sit in silence, stoically defy- OLIVE ?HORNE MILLEK ing tormenting gnats and mosquitoes, patiently waiting and watching to see what might befall. Alert, keen-eyed, and conscientious to the flit of a wing, she kept a firm rein upon herself, never letting her imagination run away with her, allowing herself to generalize, or attribute her own thoughts and feelings to the bird she was watching; conscientiously writing up her field notes in detail every day, preparatory to putting them in final form for publication during the months following each field season. Scrupulously truthful and enthusiastically in earnest, she was indeed an ideal reporter of bird ways. If all observers had her spirit and devotion, what could we not hope for in addition to our knowl- edge of little known life histories!
