Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Vol. IX.] 



AUTUMN. 1920. 



[No. 3. 



Egg-ShelL 



"Birds," as the Times (July 15th, 1920) 

 remarks in discussing the latest threat to their 

 existence, " have many enemies." There is 

 indeed no part of creation which has more to 

 fear not only from human greed and stupidity 

 but from professed friends. Plumage-hunter 

 and plumage-barterer, birdcatcher and bird- 

 dealer, keeper, fruit-grower, gunner and col- 

 lector all join in the chase, whether beauty, 

 rarity or fine song, real or imaginary depreda- 

 tions, or mere existence as a living thing and 

 a target form the excuse. Under the cloak of 

 bird-study, skins and eggs are brought in ; 

 under the cloak of ornithology or oology, 

 skins and eggs again and in greater numbers 

 and by divers doors. The result to the bird is 

 the same in every case. 



There is little use in considering which enemy 

 is worst ; in fighting the one, no armistice can 

 be agreed to with the rest. The formation, 

 however, of a so-called " Museum of Com- 

 parative Oology " or " World Museum of 

 Birds' Eggs," at Santa Barbara, California, 

 should at least arouse instant suspicion and 

 precaution on the part of genuine naturalists. 

 The declared purpose is to link together egg- 

 collectors all over the world, and to stimulate 

 the buying, selling, and exchanging of eggs, 

 with the main idea of forming enormous col- 

 lections of " variety " clutches. Wherever 

 colours, markings, size or shape vary in 

 the eggs of any species, the proposition is to 

 get together not fewer than eighty specimens 

 of every kind, adding to these as many nests 

 and skins as shall appear desirable. Circulars 

 are being freely sent out seeking co-operation 

 among " men and women of the oological 

 persuasion," and citing names which will not 

 allay misgivings excited by the scheme in the 

 minds of British Bird Protectors. The alleged 

 object is, needless to say, " Science," a word 

 that is becoming almost as unpleasant to the 



ear as " kultur," and covers as dubious morality 

 of action as " liberty " in the days of Madame 

 Roland. It proposes to " enlarge the content 

 of our phylogenetic knowledge of birds," while 

 ofEering a profitable exchange and mart and 

 promoting " international good feeling and 

 hospitality." The modest claim is even made 

 that the resultant stacks of egg-shells will 

 "afford an insight into the very method of 

 Nature's operations throughout the kingdom of 

 the living " and enlighten mankind " as to the 

 whence and whither of life itself." In short, a 

 new Bible-cum-Origin-of-Species combined, for 

 a new League of Nations under Humpty- 

 Dumpty. 



While bombastic nonsense such as this can 

 only raise a laugh among scientific men, the 

 scheme itself needs more than mere ridicule of 

 its Yankee — or hyphenated — phraseology. In 

 this country the collecting craze of recent years 

 is the most menacing danger that has yet 

 existed to the survival of our rarer birds. It 

 is aimed at both birds and eggs ; but especially 

 at eggs. Already public museums have amply 

 sufficient collections of these for practical 

 purposes of study and research ; and the col- 

 lecting and examination and chronicling of 

 egg-shells has received attention out of all 

 proportion to its utility and to the attention 

 bestowed upon the life, character, and habits 

 of the birds themselves. The mania begins 

 among schoolboys, usually ending in their case 

 with a few neglected drawers of specimens 

 coupled with utter ignorance of the characteris- 

 tics and economic value of birds. Even at that 

 stage the collection is apt to be, at public schools, 

 largely a matter of purchase and therefore not 

 even a basis for nature-study. It continues 

 among private collectors and trading collectors, 

 who buy and exchange and seU ; and who 

 quarter the countryside to hunt out, buy, and 

 bribe, breaking any laws that may come in the 



