THE OSPREY. 



43 



The other one yielded to a final effort next 

 morning'. I used what the drugg'ists call 3,000 

 [lancreatin, dissolved a dram in an ounce of 

 water, adding about eight drops to each egg 

 at once. The contents always came away 

 readily, and no hole was made more than one- 

 eighth of an inch. The membrane of an 

 eye that came from one egg must have been 

 at least three-eighths of an inch in diameter; 

 one vertebra came away whole with the flesh 



gone; while bones of legs and wings were too 

 common to notice. If the eggs were kept at 

 about 110 degrees, I believe the process would 

 be complete in an hour; but the impossibility 

 of thorough mixing prevents it all from com- 

 ing at once. 



Everything was odorless, which is a great 

 improvement over the slower, odorous, cold 

 process. 



AN ORNITHOLOGICAL SERMON. 



By F. U. Stearns. Sac City, la. 



S this is intended to be a 

 feimi;n, and all sermons 

 a e suppi^ised to have a 

 text, I take lor mine two 

 lines selected not from 

 the Bible, but from Emer- 

 son : 



"Hast thou named all 

 the birds without a gun ? 

 Loved the wood-rose and 

 left It on its stalk?" 

 bet me say first, that, although 1 have set 

 myself to preaching a sermon, I am no min- 

 ister Id the ordinary sense of the word; and 

 that my religion is the Gospel of Nature, w-hich 

 I believe to be the quickest, surest, and per- 

 haps the only means of getting at the truth of 

 things. 



Aly text is in the form of a question, and 1 

 am afraid that but few readers of The Ospkey 

 can reply to it in the afSrmative. 



[ can not reconcile mj'self to the wholesale 

 destruction of birds, through the collection of 

 their eggs, that is going on continually and 

 increasing every year in the name of science; 

 being accomplished mainly by those who claim 

 to be actuated by a love of nature and her off- 

 spring, the birds. 



Even in the columns of The Osi'REV, which 

 has been a welcome visitor to me from the 

 first number, and which I highly esteem for 

 *he good it is doing — even in these columns I 

 iiave read accounts, related with much appar- 

 ent satisfaction, of several sets being taken in 

 one day of the same species. For this destruc- 

 tion there was no necessity whatever, and it 

 robbed the world of some blessings which the 

 Creator intended for man. It has even been 



related how the second lajings of the same 

 birds were taken — an act not only wrong- and 

 useless, since the observations could have been 

 made without shattering the bird's faith in 

 mankind a second time, but cruel in the ex- 

 treme, and one for which I would not wish to 

 be called to account. 1 should consider it a 

 crime against nattire under whatever circum- 

 stances it might be committed, but especially 

 so when no scientific benefit whatever resulted 

 to other students of ornithology. 



1 do not wish to be thought a fault-finder, 

 and I only say these things because man is 

 of such a grasping nature that 1 am afraid 

 we too often act without seriously thinking of 

 the consequences. Are we robbing birds' nests 

 and destroying birds that our posterity may 

 be better informed? In my judgment it would 

 be better to leave them the live birds; for one 

 has little interest in birds which have become 

 extinct, and does not care very much whether 

 their eggs were blotched with lirown or gray 

 and whether they measured 0.80 x 0.60 or 2.30 x 

 1.40. 



Are we collecting bird's eggs for our own 

 pleasure? I have always been strongly of the 

 opinion that the Creator's work was placed 

 here for our enjoyment and instruction, not 

 for us to ruthlessly destroy. Almost as com- 

 plete data can be obtained, except in some 

 few cases, without much destruction of life, 

 and scientific work thus performed is so much 

 more humane, that in time it would no doubt 

 lead to a more intelligent understanding of 

 bird life. If we love birds, let us not destroy 

 them, but rather make them our friends, that 

 we may stndj' them Tnore closely, and thus act 

 in greater harmony with their Creator. 



j&iSl- ■• • 



