Later  in  the  year  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a
boy  who  told  me  that  another  fellow  in  college,  by
name  Jobs,  from  somewhere  out  West,  knew  how
to  stuff  birds.  I  found  out  where  Jobs  roomed,
and  called  on  him.  He  had  on  his  mantelpiece
a  mounted  specimen  of  a  spotted  sandpiper.  It
appeared  to  me  the  most  beautiful  and  natural
piece  of  work  conceivable,  and  I  determined  at
that  moment  to  become  capable  in  this  kind  of
handicraft.    Jobs  told  me  all  about  it,  and  showed


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me  as  best  he  could,  but  he  did  not  have  any
specimen  to  demonstrate  with,  and  for  some
reason  I  never  had  a  lesson  from  him.
My  ambition  was  nevertheless  formed,  and  to
goad  it  on,  just  at  that  time  a  gentleman  presented
to  Cornell  University  the  first  systematic  collec-
tion of  mounted  birds  that  the  museum  of  that
institution  acquired.
Green  Smith,  Esq.,  a  son  of  the  well-known
Gerrit  Smith,  was  a  gentleman  of  leisure,  a  good
sportsman,  and  had  a  keen  interest  in  birds.  Dur-
ing his  many  extended  hunting  trips  he  had
always  collected  specimens.  His  collection,  for
the  time,  was  remarkable.  Many  of  his  birds  had
been  mounted  by  John  G.  Bell,  a  very  famous  taxi-
dermist, a  contemporary  and  friend  of  Audubon.
Bell  had  been  in  the  field  with  that  great  pioneer
in  American  ornithology,  and  had  assisted  him  in
his  collecting.  Green  Smith's  scientific  knowledge
of  birds  was  not  profound ;  I  think  his  interest
in  them  was  largely  that  of  a  sportsman.  They
also  aroused  his  aesthetic  sensibility,  always  the
first  appeal  of  nature.
