The Scottish Naturalist. 53 



nest with another, and note the variety in material, and even in 

 construction, adapted to some peculiarity of situation or sur- 

 roundings. Here is a field for observation and comparison by 

 means of which the philosophical student may hope to catch 

 some glimpses of the working of the laws which have taught 

 birds, as they must in time have been taught, to build nests in 

 endless variety of form and material. Little, if anything, has 

 been wTitten beyond mere speculation on this subject, which 

 presents so much scope for investigation. In spite, too, of all 

 the vast collections of birds' eggs which have been made, we 

 are still almost entirely in the dark as to any theory, even, of 

 the causes which have tended to produce such infinite variety 

 of form and colour for what is really but for one and the same 

 end. 



The method of at one and the same time limiting the ten- 

 dency to purposeless egg-collecting, and systematically extending 

 our knowledge of the whole subject, which it is the purpose of 

 this paper to suggest, is the formation in connection with local 

 museums, or, where these do not exist, with larger schools, of com- 

 plete educational collections of birds' nests and eggs. Under 

 the judicious guidance of the head-master, this might be done 

 with but a minimum of wrong to the parent birds in at most 

 three years, and the eggs and nests which would be required to 

 complete such a collection would be many times fewer than what 

 are annually destroyed in the same area, and would, by being 

 carefully housed and attended to, obviate, as I shall endeavour 

 to show, the necessity for repeated nesting in time to come. 



Many years ago I assisted at the formation of such a collection 

 for a small country museum, and our method of preserving and 

 displaying it to the best advantage being devised chiefly with a 

 view to economy of space and material, it may be useful to 

 briefly describe it. We took our nests generally before any eggs, 

 or but the first, had been laid, and binding them carefully with 

 tape or cord we saturated them or sprinkled them with some 

 preservative liquid (methylated spirits and corrosive sublimate 

 solution is best), to kill any vermin and keep away moths in the 

 future, and then dried them and packed them in drawers or boxes. 

 The eggs we got when we could. Our collection being nearly 

 complete, we had a wall case about 5 feet high and 12 inches 

 wide made, with shelves sloping at an angle of 45°. 



On the bottom shelf we placed the large nests, such as those 

 of the crow, rook, jackdaw, magpie, &c., putting into each nest 



