THE OOLOGIST. 



15. 



much regret as both ai'e young meu of 

 the l)est home reputations and t heir 

 families are of high rank. 



Balliet cUiims that his sending out 

 very i-oninion eggs for rareties was 

 through lii.s ignorance, whicli is un- 

 doubtedly the truth, for no one butr an 

 excessively ignorant collector would 

 have sent out Mourning Dove eggs for 

 those of the Saw-whet Owl, but Mr. B. 

 made a bad me^^s of it wlieu he attempt- 

 ed to replace them under an alias Avith 

 woodpecker eggs, He promises to 

 "never do so any more" and to replace 

 any spurious eggs he may have sent out 

 with genuine ones or cash. 



Smitlnvick pleads "ignorance" and 

 that owing to his tender years he "did- 

 n't know any better," we are inclined 

 to dill'er with him, however, for at the 

 age of 21 the average oologist is out of 

 swadtUing garments and, jn tlie North at 

 least, knows much more, in his own esti- 

 mation, than ever after. 



Smithwick has doubtless palmed 

 off more spurious eggs during 

 the past two years on innocent and un- 

 suspecting collectors — and older ones 

 too, who had the utmost conlideuce in 

 his statements and integrity — than any 

 single oologist that has come to our 

 notice. We have long suspected that 

 his Florida Burrowing Owls wei-e spur- 

 ious and last season returned them to 

 him without explanation, he was still 

 l)ersistent and among others sent us a 

 set of "Saw-whets" "we had him" there 

 sure and by a little maiiouvering- 

 elicited from him /"Arcc different "origi, 

 nal" datas for this .single .set of rareties 

 but the datas fail to agree. 



Data No.l reads: Collector, Franklin 

 Benner. Localitv, Leech Lake, Minn. 



DataNo. 2, "N". P:. H" or J. W. P. 

 Smithwick. Locality, near Leech Lake, 

 Minn. Date, A.pril 13, 1890. 



Data No. 3, "Miners" from C. A. 

 Wiley. Localijv, "Co])pcr Regions," 

 Mich. Date. Ai)ril 15), 18!K). Identilica- 

 tion was'"A No. 1,' '"female caught on 

 uest" &c. 



We know that many of our advanced 

 oological fricmds will fairly turn green 

 with envy after i-eading of our bonanza, 

 now as these thiee <iatas (wt; didn't try 

 to oljtain any more) for a single set 

 wen; secured on July 24tli, Aug. 3d 

 and August 13th respectively, 

 how many cotdd we have, secured 

 up to dateV It is our candid opin- 

 ion that we would ha\ e found our 

 "stool pigeon" asprolilic as tliat renow- 

 ned Massachusets Flicker. 



In companship with our Owl datas 

 we ha^'e an etjually wonderful array ac- 

 companying some Broad-tailed (?) 

 Hummers, "to-wit: No. 1 Collector, 

 Wni. 6. Smith; Localitv, Loveland, CoL 

 No. 2 "S. E. D" for J. W. P. Smithwick; 

 Pueblo Co., Col. No. 3 "Surveying par- 

 ty;" Valencia Co., New Mexico. We 

 have failed to locate the "Co." yet, but 

 then we have the "original" data. 



We, however, were not alone in ac- 

 quiring desirable sets of Smithwick^ 

 only last week a friend in a neighbor- 

 ing city sent us for insjiection a "set of 

 Cooper's Hawk wliich S. sent him for 

 Swallow-tailed Kites frona Starr (^o., 

 Texas — poor Fool — and a set of Red: 

 startfe, Avhich S. personally collected 

 and mw the bird and sent them to our 

 friend as Yellow-throated Warblers. 



PiVery set of eggs that has passed 

 tln-ough Smithwick's hands, if its iden^ 

 ty cannot be positively determined by 

 the specimens theiuselves we consider 

 valueless and the data, from our own 

 experience, and from what we might 

 have secured by following up our own 

 "No. 3's," can almost as truthfully be 

 filled out: — Collector, "Adam"; Local- 

 ity, "Oblivion." 



F. M. Kinne, formerly of Knoxville, 

 Iowa, but now of 419 Sixth Av., Des 

 Moines has for several j'ears had a re- 

 putation of being very slow especially 

 in making returns to exchangers, hu 

 has apparently been proni])t in oti'ering 

 desirable specimens, but after receiving 

 your specimens it has required from 

 one to three months of patient waiting, 

 continuous spurring and in many cases 

 serious threatening to elicit returns. 

 He usually gave ijlausiblo reasons for 

 delay and as far as our knowledge goes 

 eventually made matters straight, w^e 

 have had dealings with him lor years 

 ami have never yet found him dishon- 

 est, and most sincerly trust that he can 

 now give a satisfactoiy exjUaiialioii for 

 his long silence. 



In a i)ersonal letter to us Mr. Kiune 

 writes that he is now back on only 13 

 exchanges and that these were d(;lay(Hl 

 on account of sickness, moving, &'. He 

 says that these matters will be straight- 

 ened uj) as early as possible, and that 

 he will make everything to his patron.'^ 

 entiiv satisfaction. We have conlideuce 

 that Mr. K. will do exactly as he ha;^ 

 a^feed. 



