10 



SUGGESTIONS 



FOR FORMING 



COLLECTIONS OF BIRDS' EGGS. 



BY ALFRED NEWTON. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



The collecting' of birds' eggs for scientific purposes requires 

 far more discrimination than the collecting of specimens in 

 almost any other branch of natural history. While the botanist, 

 and, generally speaking, the zoologist, at home is satisfied as 

 long as he receives the specimens in good condition, with labels 

 attached giving a few concise particulars of when and where 

 they were obtained, it should be always borne in mind that to 

 the oologist such facts, and even the specimens themselves, are 

 of very slight value unless accompanied by a statement of other 

 circumstances which will carry conviction that the species to 

 which the eggs belong has been accurately identified, and the 

 specimens subsequently carefully authenticated. Consequently 

 precision in the identification of his specimens should be the 

 principal object of an egg-collector, to attain which all others 

 must give way. There are perhaps few districts in the world, 

 and certainly no regions of any extent, whose faunas are so well 

 known that the most rigid identification may be dispensed with. 

 Next to identifying his specimens, the most important duty of 

 an egg-collector is to authenticate them by marking them in 

 some manner and on some regular system as will leave no doubt, 

 as long as they exist, of their having been obtained by him, and 

 of the degree of identification to which they were subjected. 

 Neatness in the mode of emptying the shells of their contents, 

 and other similar matters, are much to be commended ; they 



