14 



THE OOLOGIST 



day his 66 years set well upon him 

 although his hair is grey. The birds 

 he caught in those early days are to 

 him just as lively, as animated as they 

 were forty-six years ago. Mr. Wer- 

 ner's songsters may never sing, but 

 they will never perish at least barring 

 accidents for many years to come 



Of course any work that is remark- 

 able is the result of exceptional in- 

 terest on the part of the worker. Mr. 

 Werner's has been a labor of love. 

 When he was a little fellow of six he 

 would wander about the farm of his 

 parents near Nazareth, Pa'., and watch 

 birds. He became familiar with their 

 ways, learned to know the meaning of 

 their language so that when he was 

 about 15 he could tell any bird by its 

 chirrup. Probably few children attain 

 such unique understanding of linguist- 

 ry; in time he learned to know the 

 language and habits of 500 different 

 kinds of birds. 



To a visitor entering the place 

 where he has exhibited his birds for 

 18 years, Mr. Werner will point out a 

 Passenger Pigeon caught in North- 

 ampton County on May 11, 1870 — a 

 brown and black species which is now 

 extinct. If one has the time he will 

 tell the story of any one of the 200 

 kinds of birds, of its life and habits, 

 where the speciman was caught and 

 just what adventures he had in secur- 

 ing them. Weeks, sometimes months, 

 were spent in getting a particular 

 bird. Swamps were invaded, moun- 

 tains were scaled, all sorts of dangers 

 braved. 



Entering this quaint place, one will 

 see on his left a case of sea birds 

 caught along the coast from New Jer- 

 sey to Texas; on the right Kites, one 

 specimen which is extremely rare and 

 which was caught with difficulty in 

 the Everglades of Florida. There is, 

 too, among the Woodpeckers a va- 

 riety of Ivory-bill, caught twenty 



years ago which is now extinct. 



One sees in a great glass case a 

 couple of Bald Eagles and the young 

 peep eagle just emerged from the 

 shell. Mr. Werner will tell one the 

 story of this ferocious Eagle, how it 

 once attempted to carry off a child; 

 how the child's mother beat it with a 

 broom and how as it rose in the air 

 the child dropped from its claws and 

 was saved. 



The love Mr. Werner felt for the 

 birds as a boy bred in him a desire to 

 preserve specimens of mated birds, 

 preserve them as they lived in their 

 haunts with nests as they built them, 

 with eggs and where possible young. 



There are hundreds of birds each 

 installed in fitting surroundings In 

 most cases the nests are those built 

 by the birds themselves; in most cases 

 the eggs were those laid by the female 

 bird in the case, and in many cases the 

 trees, the boughs, the strange retreats 

 in which those birds appear are those 

 in which they were found. 



Mr. Werner learned the art of taxi- 

 dermy when he was 20. He had 

 formed a friendship with a teacher in 

 the parochial school at Nazareth, a 

 naturalist in his way. His extensive 

 knowledge of bird anatomy enables 

 him to mount birds just as they were 

 when living and the results are re- 

 markable. 



For five years Mr. Werner has been 

 taxidermist for the State Museum at 

 Trenton, N. J, and during this time 

 he has collected about 300 birds in- 

 digenous to the State and placed them 

 in the Museum. He uses a 12 gauge 

 shotgun with which he has shot all 

 kinds of birds ranging from Eagles lo 

 Humming Birds. 



One of the largest in his collection 

 is a great white Whistling Swan— a 

 majestic bird from Alaska. From tip 

 to tip of the wings it measures near- 

 ly ten feet. By some chance the bird 



