From 1870-1915, as nearly as can be determined by her manuscript lists, Mrs. Miller published about seven hundred and eighty articles, one booklet on birds and twenty-four books—eleven of them on birds, her books being published mainly by the Houghton Mifflin Company and E. P. Dutton. When we stop to consider that her real work did not begin until she was fifty-four, after which four hundred and five of her articles and nineteen of her books were written, and moreover that during her later years, by remarkable self-conquest, she became a lecturer and devoted much of her time to lecturing on birds in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and other towns, we come to a realization of her tireless industry and her astonishing accomplishment.

When living in Brooklyn she was a member of some of the leading women’s clubs of New York and Brooklyn, giving her time to them with the earnest purpose that underlay all her work. In the midst of her busy life, it is good to recall as an example of her devotion to her friends, that for years Mrs. Miller gave up one day a week to visiting an old friend who had been crippled by an accident; and after she had gone to California took time to make for her a calendar of three hundred and sixty-five personally selected quotations from the best in literature.

The Auk — Part 8

Among Mrs. Miller’s pleasures during her later years in the East were the meetings of the Linnæan Society held in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the A. O. U. meetings which she attended in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, enjoying not only the papers of other workers, but the rare opportunity to meet those interested in her beloved work. In a letter written after one of the meetings she exclaimed—“You don’t know what a good time we have always. We had a real ‘love feast’ this time. Not only all the old standbys—Mr. Brewster, Mr. Sage, Dr. Allen, Dr. Merriam and the rest, but a lot of Audubonites and John Burroughs. I went over and stayed with Mrs. May Riley Smith and attended every session.” In this same letter she speaks of her promotion to the new class of membership and says, “It is a great pleasure to have _honest work_ recognized, and encourages one to keep at it.”

The Auk — Part 8