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THE OOLOGIST. 



A person who is devoted to birds for 

 the pure love of watchiug their inter- 

 esting habits, is always able to give 

 much agreeable iuformatioa on the 

 subject, and ten to. one, although he 

 may not have a bird's skin or uest of 

 eggs in his possession, he can tell of 

 many peculiarities of bird life unknown 

 to thoughtless collectors. I was once 

 acquainted with an old gentleman who 

 was a great ramliler, and a natural- 

 born student of bird life, and yet he 

 never skinned a bird in his life, and 

 took but few eggs, and those under 

 protest for me. Still he knew the 

 varied rTotes of the birds, and could 

 name the songsters with perfect accur- 

 acy from their calls or warblings. He 

 was a great lover of pet bii'ds and I be- 

 lieve if his means would have admitted 

 of it would have had an aviary with all 

 of our songsters in it. It was from 

 him that I first learned to capture and 

 keep wild birds, and this little sketch 

 will give some idea of the successes and 

 failures attending my eti'orls. 



This was many years ago, and at an 

 at;e when 1 was like all other boys, iu- 

 clineil to be avaricious. I will ii('\ er 

 forget the methods I used to em|)loy in 

 collecting. I wouldstart out with gun, 

 insect net, Hower press, various boxes 

 tilled with cotton for eggs and others 

 for other specimens On .setting out, I 

 much i-esen\i)led a coml)iuation of crazy 

 peddler, Indian medicine man, and 

 wild western cow-b'^y, with enough of 

 natural, or rather unnatural 'boy' in 

 my make up to suggest that I was not 

 as deadly or crazy as I looked But it 

 was when I returned from these general 

 collecting trips that my appearance 

 cieatcd a stir. Jt is no wondci- that 

 the timid little girls used to run into 

 the houses, while the ii-repressible small 

 boys would hoot and jeer as I ))asscd. 

 It was enough to secure me a berth in 

 the asylum, or a cell in the lock-up, in 

 any village where I was not known. 



Reader, imagine a biped, slim and 



loose-jointed, coming down thestieet. 

 a huge straw hat perched on his head, 

 all covered with blossoms and foliage, 

 and stuck full of dead impaled butter 

 flies and other insects. Ten to one if 

 the hat was lifted, a live snake or two 

 wouhl escape from the crown, where 

 thej' had been condued. Balanced 

 over his right shoiddcr is a shot gun, 

 from the muzzle of which dangles a big 

 black snake or blue racer and perhaps 

 a heron or two, while from his left hand 

 swings a string of Hsh. From the big 

 collecting basket, strapped at the side 

 issue chirps and twitterings which come 

 from a miscellaneous assortment of 

 young birds which are inclined to rebel 

 at the jolting thej- are receiving from 

 this involuntary ride over a rough road. 



Reader, that's me, when I returned 

 from a general collecting trip. On 

 those trips I used to gather most every- 

 thing, useful and nonsensical, which it 

 was possible to carry, and the amount 

 of litter that I accumulated in the 

 course of a season was something fright- 

 ful to behold. Anything that excited 

 my curiosity was lugged home, whether 

 animal, vegetable or mineral and it 

 was all the same; and the old skeleton 

 of a horse, a living snapping turtle or 

 a dead skunk received the same at- 

 tention that was bestowed on the deli- 

 cate woodland flowers, or the artistic 

 nest of the gnatcatcher. 



However, birds, was then, and is now 

 my favorite study. During rambles, I 

 found many nests of young birds and 

 these I watched and attempted to get 

 some insight into their food habits. 

 When the birds were old enough tocpiit 

 the nest, I used, to take them home. 

 Sometimes I took but one from a nest, 

 but generally I appropriated the whole 

 brood, excusing myself by saying, that 

 a Ijird or so might die, it was best to 

 take all of them, so as to make more of 

 raising some of them. Of course this 

 mortality was frightful and it was an 

 uuustial dav when one of the stall -fe<l. 



