THE OOLOGIST. 



147 



Herons. Mv fourteenth nest proved 

 the accuracy of my theory and I de- 

 scended with my first set of four Black- 

 crowned Night Heron, s eggs. 



Covered from head to foot with 

 white, chalky dust, my eyes and throat 

 full of it, my hands and arms scratched 

 and bleeding, I presented the picture 

 of a thoroughly exhausted but happy 

 Oologist. 



I climbed to no more nests, but from 

 where I stood I counted 38 of these 

 oddly constructed bird-homes, which 

 number alone would form a good- 

 sized colonv. It would be interesting 

 to know the exact number of nests in 

 the colony, but at that time I was too 

 tired to think of counting them. 



Profiting by my experience of 1901, I 

 returned to the heronry May 12th of 

 this season (1902) and finding them 

 quite as numerous, collected two more 

 nice sets of four fresh eggs. 



Realizing how soon this beautiful and 

 interesting bird would be with us only 

 in memory, I was sadly tempted to add 

 more sets to my collection, but equally 

 as determined not to be one of the 

 chief causes of its disappearance, I con- 

 tented myself with the spoils already 

 gained and the memory of my pleasant 

 experience among the Night Herons. 

 Isaac E. Hess, 

 Philo, 111. 



And If So, Why? 



I have read, in the July and August 

 numbers of the Oologist, the article by 

 Mr. Claire W. Wood, entitled "If So, 

 Why? With an interest tempered only 

 by an occasional doubt as to whether I 

 really caught the authors true meaning. 



Confessing this doubt thus at the out- 

 set, I shall ask Mr. Wood's pardon if 

 any of the inferences drawn or ques- 

 tions propounded are based on erron- 

 eous suppositions. A little further 

 statement seems essential to a knowl- 

 edge of what position the author of "If 



not, why so 9 " occupies on questions 

 which to the nature-lover, must ever 

 assume an aspect of increasing im- 

 portance- 



Since in the tale narrated under the 

 title above referred to, an imaginary 

 opera glass student (defined apparent- 

 ly, by Mr. Wood as t.11 that ignominous 

 class who study birds without killing 

 them) sits in judgment on an imaginary 

 ornithologist, and thereby the two 

 classes are separated and arrayed of ne- 

 cessity as against each other, it be- 

 comes of interest to enquire what Mr. 

 Wood's definition of an ornithologist is 

 and what the radical short coming of 

 the opera glass student that forever de- 

 bars him from entering the mystic 

 zone of advanced knowledge from the 

 holy atmosphere of which the orni- 

 thologist sees him "just mushroom 

 high" and "sinks a serene self-satis- 

 fied smile which gradually gives 

 way to a sympathetic expression 

 as he muses back into the past." 



If the average ornithologist muses 

 back into the past with sufficiently keen 

 memory, be may recollect a greater or 

 less number of bird-skins made and of 

 eggs collected. Some of thes^ may 

 even get repose in the cabinets of today, 

 some, perchance, he may recall, went 

 to satisfy the craving for scientific in- 

 vestigation, along original lines, of the 

 mouse, who, like the ornithologist, was 

 too shrewd to be convinced could come 

 by observation without dissection. Of 

 the whole fruits of his collecting, what 

 percentage will memory recall, to 

 which can be accorded the determ'ina - 

 tion a fact new to ornithological knowl- 

 edge, or one which, new to the student 

 himself, could not have been obtained 

 by him from some less destructive 

 source. 



As he continues to muse on the past 

 he may recall some such instances as 

 one the writer has in mind when, while 

 in Porto Rico he shot a Vireo latimeri, 

 and going to pick it up, found one tiny 



