Bird lore - Project Puffin

142 Bird -Lore
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FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY
When George Bird Grinnell coined the
term "Audubon Society," and started the
Audubon Movement, in 1886, one of the
first to respond to the call and to go
actively into the work was Miss Florence
Merriam, who, with Miss Fanny Hardy
now Mrs. Eckstorm, author of several
bird-books—in March, 1886, organized
the Smith College Audubon Society. Soon
afterward Miss Merriam assumed the
duties of a local Audubon secretaryship,
in northern New York, and also secured
local secretaries in several neighboring
towns.
In 1897, when the Audubon Society of
the District of Columbia was organized,
she was one of its chartered members. For
many years, as Mrs. Florence Merriam
Bailey, she has been an active member of
its executive committee, and, among other
duties, has had charge of the annual
spring bird-class, one of the most impor-
tant features of that Society. That her
interest in the work is deep and sympathetic
to an unusual degree may be shown
by a quotation from a letter that she
wrote to the California Audubon Society
on the occasion of its organization:
"Wherever you go, study the birds and
tell your friends of them. Point out to
them the chaste beauty of your exquisitely
tinted waterfowl; let them see the glowing
splendor of your Tanagers, the flashing
jewels of your Hummingbirds. Take them
to the fields, that they may listen in rapture
to the rare voice of your Meadowlark;
take them to the deep canyons filled with
the flute-like notes of the Canyon Wren;
and to the fir forests on the mountainsides,
where their souls will be stirred by
the uplifted song of the Thrush.
"By knowing the birds personally, you
will bring to your Audubon work the
enkindling spark of enthusiastic friend-
ship. In all phases of your work, for
yourselves, your friends, your birds, and
your children, you have my hearty
interest and good wishes. For fifteen
years I have been waiting for you to take
up the cause of the California birds, and
for many years I have been working with
the children of the West on my heart.
Knowing this, you may well believe that
I wish your beautiful work an earnest
God-speed."
Mrs. Bailey's natural girlhood's interest
in wild birds was greatly quickened by
dwelling in a home in which scholarship
and a love of scientific accuracy were
taught daily; and she had the added
advantage of living in a region of northern
New York well supplied with bird-life.
In a recent letter she wrote: "Having been
brought up on Coues's 'Key,' and trained
by my brother, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, on
leaving College in 1886 I began doing
careful field-work." Since that day, no
woman has studied the wild birds of
America so systematically, so thoroughly,
and so carefully as she. The amount of
field-work she has done is perfectly astonishing,
and probably few women have
spent so many days in the wilds, or so
many nights under canvas, as has Mrs.
Florence Merriam Bailey. Her work,
partly conducted in company with her
brother, Dr. Merriam, and her husband,
Mr. Vernon Bailey, has been carried on
not only in eastern and southern states
and in the Bermudas, but also in Arizona,
Oregon, California, North Dakota, Texas,
Utah, and New Mexico.
As a teacher of others, she has given
bird-talks and conducted field-classes in
bird-study in various parts of the country,
and for thirty years her name has been
before the public as a writer of popular
and scientific articles. The titles of no
less than seventy communications pub-
lished in The Auk, Bird-Lore, The Condor,
Forest and Stream, The Outlook, Popular
Science, The American Agriculturist, and
elsewhere, have come to my attention.
Her first book, "Birds Through An Opera
Glass," was published in 1889. This was
followed by "My Summer in a Mormon
Village," 1895; "A-Birding on a Bronco,"
1896; and "Birds of Village and Field,"
1898.
Her largest and most valuable con-