THE OOLOGIST. 



Hens. They cackle like a hen, some- 

 what, when they lay an egg or leave 

 their nest. They like nest building, 

 I am sure, because one will find 3 to 

 5 good nests to one that is occupied. 

 Some of them are frail and shab- 

 by while some are works of art. 

 Snakes, I am sure, are their worst 

 enemy, because their breeding places 

 are inhabited by huge moccasins. Had 

 a very narrow escape from one to-day. 

 It was coiled up in nest of Gallinule 

 and through the grass I first thought 

 Mrs. Gallinule was at home, my hand 

 was within a few inches of it when 

 my companion saw its head raised to 

 strike me and hollered "snair" so 

 loud that I nearly fell out of the boat, 

 after dispatching it I skinned it and 

 took out a fine set of 4 fresh Purple 

 Gallinule eggs which I saved for my 

 cabinet. This reminds me of an ex- 

 perience I had one year ago to-day 

 on Bird Island here on the lake. In 

 rambling around the Island I sudden- 

 ly found myself standing straddle of 

 a 6-foot moccasin which measured 12 

 inches in circumference. In making a 

 skin of this fellow I found 6 Reddish 

 Egrets, just hatched, and 8 fresh eggs 

 of same species, 4 of which had been 

 so recently swallowed that I saved 

 them for my cabinet. Snakes in 

 here surely had a snap. There must 

 have been 4,000 that occupied nests 

 on this island, of the small Herons, 

 sometimes as many as 8 nests in one 

 bush. Snakes crawl from one nest to 

 another and take their choice. Kill- 

 ed at least a dozen and all were fair- 

 sized ones. Sighted a wild cat there, 

 too, that must have been living a life 

 of ease. It was so hot in this island 

 that birds were not on their nests at 

 all. but eggs were pipping and hatch- 

 ing all about us. This was a 

 paradise for an Ornithologist. Bui, 

 Oh my, the malarial bearing mosqui- 

 toes and fish flies, they nearly pester- 

 ed the life from us. 



O. E. BAYNARD. 



PRO AND CON. 



An Old-Timer's View of Some Recent 

 Legislation and Its Enforcement. 



No one whose love for the birds in 

 their native environments will, after 

 14 hours of hard farm work, lead 

 him to walk three miles to the woods 



without his supper, brave a horde of 

 blood-thirsty mosquitoes for an hour, 

 and then walk the three miles home 

 again, simply to verify a new breed- 

 ing record, as I have done, is going to 

 knowingly do anything to extermin- 

 ate the birds, if he can avoid it. and 

 no one knows better than such a per- 

 son the actual effect on the birds of 

 every natural or imposed condition 

 his birds contend with. 



When the wild bird protective 

 clause was first incorporated in the 

 New York State Game Law in 1897, 

 we who had the interests of the birds 

 as much at heart as anyone in the Au- 

 dubon Societies, found no fault. The 

 restrictions it placed on us were not 

 unreasonable and we were not in sym- 

 pathy with the millinery trade. 



In 1906, however, the law was 

 amended so that the Game Commis- 

 sion might or might not grant the per- 

 mits for field collecting, as it chose. 



And we soon found out that unless 

 j'ou had a big "pull" somewhere they 

 chose to turn you down. 



My application was promptly turn- 

 ed down on the ground that "There 

 are enough permits in existence to 

 meet all scientific requirements." 



And yet the Assistant State Zoolo- 

 gist since has complained that he can- 

 not use certain records of mine be- 

 cause I have been unable to verify 

 them by collecting specimens. 



Does their theory work out satis- 

 factorily? 



Again, I have been notified by a 

 representative of the Audubon Socie- 

 ty that the sale of a scientific skin 

 of any wild bird native to the state 

 would be considered a violation of the 

 law, no matter when or where collect- 

 ed, or what i)ur])Ose it were purchased 

 for. 



What do you think of that? One 

 teacher writes: "I shall simply have 

 to get a ijermit to go and kill some 

 birds to i)rovide our school with the 

 specimens we need in class work." 



Which is to be preferred? .\llow 

 the nature study supply man to buy 

 old collections and distribute them 

 to do duty over again or force the 

 teacher to go to the woods for his 

 material? 



I knew that a certain large Taxi- 

 dermy Est. in my town was selling 

 bird skins freely, so I asked the head 



