July, 1893.] 



AND OOLOGIST. 



105 



Sketch It. 



How many of my readers do not keep a 

 note-book? Scarcely one, if he be a natural- 

 ist. To claim to be a student of nature and 

 and not keep a note-book would call forth 

 as much scorn these days as would be pro- 

 voked by the assertion that a man was a mer- 

 chant when people knew he didn't even 

 keep a ledger. 



Therefore I will take it for granted that 

 we all keep our obsers-ations recorded. If not 

 for the public, at least for ourselves. 



Now next winter, and the succeeding 

 winters and summers, which I hope you 

 may all pass pleasantly, you will be looking 

 over this year's note-book. You will read 

 how you saw that handsome Duck Hawk in 

 the White Mountains or those rare Warblers 

 in the swamp. Then you will turn over a 

 page and read how you scaled the moun- 

 tains and swung over the ledge for those 

 eggs and found young, or how, after weary 

 hours' searching for the home of that Cape 

 May, you found an old nest, vacant these 

 three years. All this and more you will re- 

 call with pleasure as you are snugly settled 

 in your library, caring naught for the gale 

 outside. 



You will laugh as you think of the hard 

 words you thought when you were disap- 

 pointed, and you will try to bring those 

 happy remembrances up before your vision. 

 But you can't. No, sir, they won't come. 

 You will confuse scenes of trout fishing and 

 that fine shot at the Woodcock with the 

 sight that greeted your eyes as you hung 

 suspended two hundred feet in midair, or 

 you will remember that morning on the 

 marshes with the Mallards coming in in big 

 wedges, and you will hear the boom 1 boom ! 

 of your double, followed by the splash-h-h, 

 thud, thud, as those five came down to two 

 shots. 



All this or something just as misleading 

 will be mixed in with your ornithological 

 ideas and you can't help yourself. That is. 



you cannot unless you sketch it. " Sketch 

 it?" "Yes; why not?" "Why, I can't 

 sketch." "Perhaps not, but learn." 



You couldn't walk once, but you learned. 

 You couldn't read — you learneil. You 

 couldn't write — you can now. How is it? 

 Why, you learned, of course. 



Well, then, learn to sketch, and when you 

 go on a trip take your sketch-book along. 



Whenever you see anything that interests 



you and you enjoy, sit down and sketch it. 



Yes, sir, sit right down and sketch, sketch, 



sketch. That's the way to learn. Try it. 



Try again and you'll succeed. 



Arthur M. Pariiicr. 

 Amoskeag, N.H. 



\. H. B. Jordan writes that a Rubythroated 

 Hummer met death in a peculiar manner at 

 their mill at Johnsonburg, Pa. It flew into 

 the bleachery window, and, encountering the 

 flumes of chlorine, dropped dead in an in- 

 stant as if it had been shot. 



Two sets of eggs of the Passenger Pigeon 

 just received are the first that we have had 

 sent in for a long time. 



Now that business is again starting uji, 

 pay your small bills. They are really of 

 more importance than they appear. Sub- 

 scribers should think of this. It is necessary 

 for the continuation of a publication. The 

 printer's bill must be paid. 



Alligator eggs are soon to be very rare, 

 those at least from Florida. Where we used 

 to have them offered by the thousand, we 

 now seldom hear th;m mentioned. 



Two lobsters were recently caught at the 

 Cape weighing 19 and 17 lbs., respectively. 

 They were preserved. 



Summer Birds of Green County, Penn., 

 by J. Warren Jacobs, Waynesburg, Pa. It 

 is a list of Birds found in the locality during 

 the breeding season, describing localities 

 frequented, dates of nesting, etc. 



