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we doing here?" Austin said, "We are going to hear the whippoorwill." We sat very quietly and pretty soon the whippoorwill began. He knew exactly where to find it.

Here's a story about Austin Clark. He was so well-educated, there wasn't a field that he didn't know. One time when the Cosmos Club was having financial difficulties--should they raise the dues or what should they do? Dear old Dr. Howard said, "Well, I suggest we sell the [[underlined]] Encyclopaedia Britannica, [[/underlined]] and put up a notice that Austin Clark will be in the library from two to four every Thursday afternoon." [Laughter] He had an encyclopedic knowledge, he really did.

HENSON: I can't imagine those types of minds, because the detail of just anyone of those fields is so staggering--to be able to know more than that. I've heard stories about both him and Stejneger, of younger people going to them-- like Dr. [Harald A.] Rehder going to Stejneger, and Dr. Rehder is in mollusks, yet Stejneger knowing about his field, and going out on collecting trips with Clark, and Clark knowing where to send him for things. It's a remarkable kind of mind. I guess you were getting acquainted faster and faster with natural history then?

MANN: Oh, yes. I never studied it really scientifically; I don't know anything about taxonomy, even today. But you can't help but be interested in it. I know enough so I know whether they're talking about insects or birds, reptiles.

HENSON: How closely knit at that point were the different societies? Dr. Mann belonged to the Baird Ornithological Club, didn't he? Do you recall that at all?