OUTFITS, AND HINTS OX HUNTING. 17 



go to escape the cold weather. In the northern regions bird- 

 collecting naturally begins with the spring migration from the 

 South, and is most active from that time up to the end of June. 

 During July and August the old birds are moulting, and the 

 young ones have immature plumage and stub tails. 



A rule which can be safely applied- to all tropical climates is 

 that the dry season is best for either collecting, sport, or travel. 

 Never collect in the rainy season if you can help it. Animal 

 life is doubly hard to find, specimens are desperately difficult to 

 preserve, and field work is very trying on the patience and the 

 constitution. 



In the Arctic regions, hunting and collecting must be done in 

 midsummer, or not at all. While it is true that in the torrid and 

 temperate zones there is a certain amount of work to be done all 

 the year round, there is always a particular season which may be 

 regarded as the harvest-time. 



COLLECTING BY AMATEURS. There is one kind of collecting 

 which should be discouraged in every possible way, and that is 

 the postage-stamp style of collecting by boys who have no real 

 love for natural history. Boys in their teens often make col- 

 lections of bird-skins, eggs, and nests in precisely the same 

 spirit that prompts them to gather coins, postage stamps, and 

 autographs " to see who can get the most kinds." This vicious 

 propensity is apt to involve a very good boy in a useless and 

 inexcusable w r arfare against the feathered tribes. Many a time 

 I have been saddened by the sight of drawer upon drawer, full 

 to overflowing, of poorly made skins of our most beautiful song- 

 birds, hundreds of them in a single collection, perhaps not worth 

 ten cents apiece in any market, each skin merely recording the 

 important fact that it was shot on a certain day in a certain 

 place. There is a way to prove whether a juvenile collector has 

 really a love for the study of birds. Let the one who furnishes 

 the sinews of war parent, guardian, or elder brother demand 

 that he shall mount every good specimen he kills, and be able to 

 tell all about its habits, food, economic value, etc. This will in 

 any event result in great good. If the collector is not really 

 absorbed in the study of bird-life, the labor such a course 

 involves will soon deter him from indiscriminate slaughter ; 

 and even if he is destined to become a distinguished member of 

 2 



