<3Tf)e Bufcmbon ^octette* 



SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 



Edited by A. A. ALLEN, Ph.D. 



Address all communications relative to the work of this 

 department to the Editor, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 



STUDYING BIRDS' EGGS 



To one who has any appreciation of the beauties of nature, the eggs of 

 birds will always make their appeal. Whether it is the unthinking schoolboy 

 intent only upon making a collection of all unusual objects, or the most expe- 

 rienced naturalist, the discovery of a bird's nest containing its quota of delicately 

 tinted eggs brings a thrill that is long remembered. It is little wonder that the 

 ordinary child longs to possess them, and, when not properly directed, accu- 

 mulates a drawerful of meaningless treasures which, with lack of care, soon 

 lose their beauty and fascination. 



The majority of teachers hesitate to indulge in a discussion of birds' eggs 

 for fear it will stimulate the latent enthusiasm of their children into making 

 collections, with resulting destruction to bird-life. They know how little 

 encouragement the 'collecting instinct' needs to send it rampant throughout 

 the school, and they therefore pass over the subject of birds' eggs with the 

 admonition, "you must not touch," "it is against the law," or some other 

 phrase intended to destroy interest. This is to be commended if the teacher 

 feels that he is unable to control the activities of his children. On the other 

 hand, there are few of the older ornithologists living today, men who are doing 

 the most for the protection of birds, whose interest did not begin with the mak- 

 ing of a collection of birds' eggs. The use of the field-glass and the observation 

 blind for watching birds, and of the camera for recording one's observations is 

 comparatively recent, and the present generation of bird students, in their 

 youth, required other means of gratifying that instinct to possess and to pass 

 on to others the results of their discoveries. 



In making their collections of birds' eggs, these older ornithologists gained 

 an intimacy with the lives of birds which the majority of field-glass students 

 today fail to get, and they had open to them a resource, an outdoor hobby, 

 comparable only with that of the bird photographer today. Of course, in 

 collecting the eggs which they discovered, they destroyed the possibilities for 

 further study of the pair of birds which they robbed, but the bird-watching 

 and the nest-hunting that were necessary to the making of extensive collections 

 brought to them a knowledge of birds and their ways that is greatly tobeenvu-d. 



It is not the writer's belief that children should be encouraged to make 

 collections of birds' eggs. Quite the contrary. But he does believe that the 

 subject should not be shunned as though it were dangerous or forbidden 



(238) 



