58 



THE OOLOGIST 



The Migrant Shrike. 



I have never noticed a record of the 

 Migrant Shril^e (Laniiis Ludovicianus 

 Migrans) (Palmer) in THE OOLO- 

 GIST. As the bird is rather rare, a 

 few records may be of interest. 



The first one I ever saw was on the 

 salt marshes at Revere, Mass., quite 

 a few years ago and unfortunately I 

 did not make note of the exact date. 



The second one I found was at the 

 salt marshes bordering Forest River, 

 Salem, Mass., on August 26, 1911. 



On September 2, 1911 I saw another 

 one on the Revere marshes, and on 

 August 24, 1912, I saw one at Forest 

 River, Salem, Mass. 



Considering the rarity of this sub- 

 species I feel very fortunate to have 

 seen four of them. 



H. O. Green. 

 Stoneham, Mass. 



Collecting Birds Eggs. 

 How I Began. — R. Magoon Barnes. 

 I. 

 In the years that past, before the 

 days of Audubon Societies, and kin- 

 dred organizations, almost every boy 

 at one time or another of his youth, 

 made a collection of birds eggs. It 

 was so in the course of the Natural 

 evolution of the future man. His 

 mother and father took it as a normal 

 stage of development, and his sisters 

 as a usual boyish freak. Soon strings 

 of eggs hung in the boy's room, prepar- 

 ed by punching a hole in each end 

 with a pin. Many were the rare and 

 almost unheard of specimens obtained. 

 The Pewee, Chippie and Robin vied 

 with the "Knot Bird," "Squawk," and 

 "The Henhawk" for first place. Many 

 men gray and bent today look back to 

 their egg collecting days as among the 

 most pleasant of their lives. These 

 collections were unusually short lived. 

 One or two seasons usually sufficed to 

 use up the enthusiasm, and the mice 

 usually did the rest — to the eggs. 



It did the boys a world of good. Ex- 

 ercised their young legs. Filled their 

 growing lungs with outdoor air and 

 ozone. Occupied their minds and kept 

 them often out of greater mischief. No 

 boy is learning much wrong nor going 

 far to the bad while ranging the fields 

 and hills, climbing mountains or wad- 

 ing swamps studying nature. Would 

 that more mothers and fathers realiz- 

 ed this truth. If so more boys would 

 be encouraged and fewer discouraged 

 in these healthful, beneficial pursuits, 

 and there would be fewer boys on the 

 streets learning evil every hour. 



A different time is here now and a 

 different condition confronts us all. 

 Ornithologists and Oologists alike. 

 Laws, some of them beneficial and 

 some positively idiotic, stare us in the 

 face. Clubs, societies and the like 

 surround us on every hand. Some of 

 the members of which are very practi- 

 cal and some complete cranks, fit only 

 for the mad house. The field Natura- 

 list and the student naturalist are to- 

 day literally between the devil and the 

 deep sea. There are no more earnest 

 practical game, and bird protectionests 

 than these very bird men exist. Yet 

 they are far from being extremists. 

 The extremist injure the cause, the 

 conservative aids it. There must be 

 moderation in all things. 



So today the Oologist must be one 

 at heart and must be in the game with 

 some definite idea or object in view. 

 The old days of indiscriminate and un- 

 limited collecting are gone, gone for 

 good, and rightfully so. The day for 

 real beneficial collecting for the pur- 

 pose of permanently preserving the 

 specimens ultimately for the public 

 benefit is here. The day of commer- 

 cialism in these matters is rapidly 

 passing and with it the greatest incen- 

 tive for fraud. 



Believing as I do, that the young 

 collector of these times must begin 



