374 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, ^c. 



as they might accumulate old china or postage-stamps, to as 

 little use and with as little scientific intent, and yet, sometimes, 

 develope into practical naturalists. These are the victims of a 

 system of imposture as gross, and far less ingenious than the 

 fictitious antiquities of Italy and Egypt ; and it is this system 

 which has provoked my present letter. In oological beyond all 

 other collections, dealers' specimens are most unsatisfactory; and 

 from long acquaintance with the frauds of the trade, I would urge 

 upon every young collector never to admit into his cabinet an 

 egg purchased from a dealer. They are rarely genuine, scarcely 

 ever authentic. It is true, valuable specimens may sometimes 

 be thus obtained ; and we have heard of the Great Auk's egg 

 turning up in a London bazaar, and even under the shadow of 

 St. Clement's Danes, though, as to the latter instance, we should 

 be sorry here to trace the previous history of the treasure. In 

 most other branches of natural science, the specimen carries with 

 it the guarantee of its genuineness ; not so in oology. Here, not 

 only the authenticity, but, in very many instances, the genuine- 

 ness also must depend upon testimony alone. It is to our late 

 valued friend Mr. Wolley, and to his worthy colleague and suc- 

 cessor Mr. A. Newton, that naturalists are indebted for the 

 scrupulous care and rigorous investigation with which our best 

 collections are now formed. But as the progress of art has ren- 

 dered the forgery of bank-notes not more impossible, but more 

 ingenious, so the success of the principles these gentlemen were 

 the first to promulgate has evoked a more elaborate system of 

 imitation. Mr. Wolley's Sale Catalogues, each of them almost 

 a synopsis of the nidification of the birds of Lapland, are well 

 known to all of us. Their repute has, it seems, brought un- 

 worthy imitators into the field. I have before me two catalogues 

 of sales in London, during the present month, which charmingly 

 illustrate the simplicity supposed to exist among mere collectors. 

 The first is a catalogue of a " valuable and authentic col- 

 lection of British birds' eggs." The list is a very complete 

 copy of Yarrell's Index, but does not descend into particulars 

 more definite than " Norway," "Lapland," &c. Suffice it to say, 

 that the egg of the Cirl Bunting is stated to have been taken in 

 Greenland; and that those of the Sanderling, Sabine's Snipe, 



