THE OOLOGIST. 



27 



on arrival of his eggs, I found one to 

 have a badly chipped hole and much 

 caked yolk adhering on inside from 

 not being perfectly rinsed. Now, I am 

 an "easy mark," it seems, because I 

 listed a number of sets to our genial 

 manager, Mr. Short, and among them 

 3 runt singles of Amer. Woodcock. 



Well, I sent them on, the whole set 

 with data, and what do you think they 

 proved to be? Eggs of the rare 

 Meadow Lark. Of course, this L. E. 

 Miller was very, very much surprised 

 that his identification could be so 

 much at fault. 



I refused to have any more of Mil- 

 ler's sets until Mr. Short passed judg- 

 ment on them. 



What does he do now? Why to 

 make it "square," he sends to Mr. 

 Short for me a "phoney" set of Voilet- 

 green Cormorant, four eggs of Com- 

 mon Tern for Plover and a set of 

 Field Sparrow and labelled them 

 Western Chipping Sparrow. 



And he isn't the only one that ought 

 to be chased to the "overgrown wood- 

 lands" either. 



Cordially yours, 



W. H. BINGAMAN. 



To the Members of the Oologist's Pro- 

 tective Committee. 



This matter of what shall be done 

 with Mr. Miller has been on my mind 

 for over a year. 



Over a year ago he sent me a set 

 of Common Blue Jay as Canada Jay, 

 taken by one Dr. Boyde in Assiniboia. 



While I was debating the matter, 

 Friend Price, of Grant Park, 111., got 

 data from him for set of Pac. Loon, 

 collected by this same Dr. Boyde on 

 the Pac. coast of British America, 

 within two days of date given for 

 my set of Jay. The distance between 

 Moose Jaw and Victoria is 1162 miles 

 and the Canadian Pacific passenger 



train takes 2 days and 13 hours to 

 make it. 



Putting this together with some sim- 

 ilar evidence of Mr. Price's, I con- 

 clude that "Dr. Boyde" skips around 

 the world on the tip of Miller's pencil 

 faster than our best express trains. 



Next came to hand a n egg of 

 Nighthawk, bearing data on one of 

 Miller's blanks in his handwriting as 

 "Poorwill," collected by Smith, Bluff, 

 Miss. 



As this could only catch the veriest 

 dunce anyway, I did not follow it up. 

 Then the set of "Runt Woodcock" 

 came to hand from Bingaman. They 

 were not odd but typical eggs of 

 Meadow Lark. 



I have been all summer working at 

 this. Result, Bingaman has the set of 

 Meadow Lark, I have the rare lot 

 of stuff as per correspondence. 



E. H. SHORT. 



Opinion of A. E. Price, Grant Park, 

 111.: 



I had been warned against Miller 

 and when I received his list I pur- 

 posely sent him a good list and se- 

 lected four sets from widely separated 

 places, asking him to send me the 

 data for examination. They came and 

 while in very different writing, one 

 could easily see that all were written 

 by Miller himself. I told him so and 

 he then claimed that he ones he sent 

 me were not the originals, but if so, 

 why should he seek to disguise his 

 hand in any case. He told me he had 

 a single without data of Poorwill. I 

 never saw any of his eggs. 



My opinion is that while he is too 

 green to take in an advanced col- 

 lector that his intentions are simply 

 A. 1, and that as a protection to the 

 young collectors Mr. Bingaman's let- 

 ter should be published in the Oolo- 

 gist, together with such statements 



