58 



FIELD ORNITHOLOGY. 



respecting lavish use of the substance at the outset. If it be true, as some state, that bugs can 

 eat arsenic without dying, it is also true that they do not relish it ; and in entering a case of 

 skins they will burrow by preference in those holding the least of it. This fact is continually 

 exhibited in large collections, where if two birds be side by side, one being duly arsenicized 

 and the other not so, one will be taken and the other left. My second item, with its proper 

 deduction, will form, I think, a iitting conclusion to this treatise. It is a fact in the natural 

 history of these our pests, that they are fond of peace and quiet, — they do not like to be dis- 

 turbed at their meals. So they rarely effect permanent lodgment in a collection that is con- 

 stantly handled, though the doors stand open for hours daily. As a consequence, the degree 

 of our diligence in studying birdskins is likely to become the measure of our success in pre- 

 serving them. I once read a work, by an eminent and learned divine, on the " Moral Uses of 

 Dark Things," under which head the author included everything from earthquakes to mos- 

 quitoes. If there be a moral use in the " dark thing " that museum pests certainly are to us, 

 w^e have it here. The very bugs urge on our work. 



Fig. 13. — "Wilson's School-house, keak Gray's Ferry, Philadelphia. From a drawing by M. S. 

 Weaver, Oct. 22, 1841-, received by Elliott Coues, February, 1879, from Malvina Lawson, daughter of Alexander 

 Lawson, Wilson's engraver. See article in the " Penn Monthly," June, 1879, p. 443. The drawing was first 

 engraved on wood, and published, by Thomas Meehan, in the "Gardener's Monthly," August, 1880, p. 248. The 

 present impression is from an electrotype of that wood-cut. The size of the original is 5.10 x 3.95 inches. This 

 reminder of early days of " Field Ornithology " in America may be further attested by the signature of 



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