in New York City at one of Grace Hoadley Dodge's social clubs. Both Merriam and her mother suffered from poor health, possibly caused by tuberculosis, which led the family to take vacations in regions with climates that were supposed to ease illness, such as the West Coast, Lake Placid, New York City, and Florida. In 1889, Merriam and her family traveled to San Diego County, at the homestead of her uncle Gustavus, in the hopes of improving the health of Merriam and her mother. In addition to easing her illness, the months-long stay in Southern California gave Merriam an interest in the Western United States and the avian life found there. During this time, Audubon Magazine had ceased publication, and Merriam decided to collect the fifty common birds whose profiles she had written for the magazine and collect them into a book. Birds Through an Opera-Glass, published in 1890 by Houghton Mifflin in Boston, was a collection of her Audubon profiles and 20 additional birds, also including appendices to help observers classify birds and additional reference materials for those who wished to continue their study. Birds Through an Opera-Glass and Merriam's other work deviated from the ornithological studies of her contemporaries: rather than examining the bodies of trapped or killed birds in indoor settings, Merriam believed in observing wildlife outdoors in their natural environments, frequently through a pair of binoculars. The profiles in Birds Through an Opera-Glass ranged from half a page to five or six pages long and contained physical descriptions of the birds' appearance, song, nests, and habits, often accompanied by illustrations or musical notation. Author Scott Weidensaul has referred to Birds Through an Opera-Glass as "in a sense, the first field guide to American birds". While scientific ornithology was a male-dominated field, the birdwatching phenomenon that grew more popular in Merriam's time was more popular among women, as it allowed for amateur study. Despite her publication, Merriam and the other female members of the American Ornithologists' Union were relegated to a "visibly subordinate level" compared to the male members. This did not change until 1901, when Merriam, Mabel Osgood Wright, Harriet Mann Miller, and a few other women achieved the rank of "elective member". Merriam was good friends with Miller, who had encouraged her writing early in her career and who had told her techniques to remain unnoticed by the birds she was observing. In 1893, Merriam