The Center affords (and see Jeff also, something was in the air last week) many glorious benefits to its members; after the obvious, I would number several subtler atmospheric advantages such as the Center’s practice of hanging numerous aquatints from Audubon’s Birds of America throughout the building. Between the stairway and my study hangs the Little Screech-Owl (a comforting sight for the member of a family for whom the owl is a totemic bird) and the Red Phalarope; these friendly neighbors attenuate the anxiety that might ensue from the image hanging in my study —the Passenger Pigeon.