72 THE CONDOR ol. X in the West. We arranged at once for forty black-and-whites, and later were able to stage the color-plates, which have given Brooks a favorable introduction to the world of bird-lovers. From x9o6 on, Mr. Brooks has been kept as busy as the irreducible claims of field work would allow. He has thus taken his art se- riously for seven years past, and has long since found himself, in confidence as well as in style and finish of workmanship. Before we pass to an analysis of Brooks' art o.r to a consideration of the man himself, it may be as well to note his recent activities. Besides fugitive pieces owned by sportsman friends and admirers in British Columbia, Washington, and England, there are to date six principal collections of Brookses: Dr. William Brewster, of Cambridge, always a consistent friend of the young artist, has a small collection of his very early work, perhaps a dozen pieces of varying merit; Francis Paget, Esq., of London, has by far the largest and best general collec- tion, comprising a series of ambitious paintings of big game and some of the larger birds, some twenty pieces in all; Colonel John E. Thayer, of Lancaster, Massachusetts, has a representative collection of earlier and smaller pieces, be- sides a series of sixteen bird-plates contained in his ext,'a-illustrated copy of "The Birds of Washington"; Hon. John Lewis Childs has the finest individual collec- tion of bird-plates extant, some forty pieces, illustrating the summer resident birds of his spacious grounds at Floral Park, New York; Miss Ellen B. Scripps, of La Jolla, has sixteen pieces of more recent work, most of them intended for future publication in "The Birds of California"; then, besides the accumulating store (something over one hundred) prepared for that work and now in the writer's custody, there are here at Los Colibris many originals of "The Birds of Washington" and a small collection of game pieces. Two other collections, since scattered, deserve passing mention--the Inghram Hughes Collection, of about forty earlier pieces, some of them of matchless technique and inspiration, which were scattered when that unfortunate plunger went to pieces in New York City
some three years ago; and the Vienna exhibit. By request of the Provincial
Government of British Columbia Mr. Brooks contributed nine pieces to the In- ternational Sportsman's Exposition at Vienna in I9II. By the conditions of the loan the sale of these paintings was not permitted; but one of the best of them, a magnificent Golden Eagle, was stolen--stolen, too, gossip has it, by one high in official position. (Poor fellow! One scarcely blames him. What else could he do if they wouldn't let him buy it ?) Of the critical judgment of Brooks's bird painting the writer is perhaps least capable, for he loves every line and shade as it falls away from the facile brush. But these characteristics at least are distinctive in Brooks's work: The authority of intimate knowledge. The artist is first and always the scientist. tle is by far the keenest observer of nature I have met. He is not only quick at field recognition, but he has an apparently inexhaustible store of exact information as to plumage changes, evanescent colors, scutellation of tarsi, and all else that pertains to the external appearance of birds. Add to this a memory photographic in its accuracy, and you have a sure foundation 'for authoritative painting. This accuracy of knowledge is sustained by accuracy of method. Bills and feet (where human judgment is most fallible) are drawn to scale, and all the problems of light and shade, balan6e, texture, contour, and perspective, are thought through to a finish. When to this is added the artist's sympathetic imaginativeness, it is little-wonder that we imve living images instead of palc copies of.birds.
