THE OOLOGIST 



53 



United States. I can blow a fresh 

 Brown Thrasher's egg and thoroughly 

 clean it at a hole so small you can 

 hardly find the hole. I use for wash- 

 ing eggs out, a small oil can the size 

 used for oiling sewing machines. This 

 can I fill with water and hold the point 

 of the can where the oil is to come 

 out at near the hole in the egg; then 

 knock the can to throw the water in 

 the egg at the hole; or if the egg is 

 large enough to let a medium size hole 

 be drilled large enough, the point of 

 the oil can can be inserted in the hole 

 in the egg. The water can be easily 

 pumped into the egg then, but this re- 

 quires very careful work. This is 

 much easier than to blow the water 

 with the mouth through a blow pipe 

 into the egg to wash it clean. After 

 1 wash an egg out clean, I then light 

 a common lamp and hold the egg over 

 the top of the lamp chimney until it 

 is dry, with blow hole down; the heat 

 from the lamp will also draw all the 

 water out of the egg shell at once and 

 you don't have to let the water drop 

 on your hot lamp chimney. If you do, 

 the chimney will break. I also have 

 learned that drying egg shells by a 

 lamp heat in this way prevents them 

 from fading, which is of great import- 

 ance as the shells of eggs of many 

 birds are bad to fade and become very 

 dull in color. 



Valuable. 

 This issue of THE OOLOGIST will 

 be a valuable hand book for those 

 starting a collection of birds' eggs, as 

 well as a reference mine for the older 

 collectors. 



The Preparation and Arrangement of 

 Specimens. 

 While this field is a wide one I will 

 not undertake to say much. I would 

 like to speak about oological speci- 

 mens only. If you are collecting or 



contemplating doing so, do it with sys- 

 tem and elegance; carefully select 

 each specimen or set of specimens and 

 after taking all notes and measure- 

 ments, just as carefully, as to identi- 

 fication locality, situation, material in 

 nest, etc., pack carefully for transpor- 

 tation, all this if you are sure the set 

 is complete. If you cannot make sure 

 of this, better wait a day or two for 

 completement, a week or more if 

 necessary. When you prepare the 

 eggs, use all care necessary to pre- 

 pare a first class specimen, cleaned 

 through a small, perfectly drilled hole, 

 use water and rinse perfectly clean, 

 be sure and remove all of the contents 

 of every specimen: dry slowly and 

 carefully on a card with various sized 

 holes in, in which to rest each egg. 

 In number use a soft A. W. Faber 

 drawing pencil about BG or BB, have 

 a point and make small numbers done 

 with neatness. Measure carefully the 

 nest, and bind it about with black 

 thread, 50 cotton size, wrap in tissue 

 paper or make a cartoon of a heavy 

 paper and put carefully away unless 

 you intend to use it in the cabinet. In 

 a small collection, I like to use a cab 

 inet of drawers and place each nest 

 with its egg in the drawers, write out 

 a full data with some notes on the 

 back, always having the number of the 

 egg and nest on each data, so as to 

 avoid confusion. If you wish to use 

 the name of the bird on the nest of 

 eggs in the cabinet, print them or have 

 them printed in neat small letters. 

 Whatever you do, use neatness and 

 system, for nothing looks worse than 

 a poorly kept, disorderly collection. 

 George W. H. vosBurgh. 



Marking Eggs. 



Among the numerous offerings you 

 will doubtless receive giving methods 

 and means used in the preparation of 

 specimens, 1 would like to submit one 

 on kindred subjects. 



