46 The Oologists' Record, September 1, 1923. 



of such eggs which come into the market are accompanied by the 

 barest and scantiest data. No indication is given as to whether 

 supposed nests of Lanner were taken from chff sites or trees ; 

 chitches of Falcons' eggs, inscribed " Falco barbarus," are sent from 

 Marocco, which may be any of three different forms, F. peregrinus 

 brookei from the Tangier district, F. p. p elegy inoides from the 

 Atlas, or even F. biarmicus erlangeri, of which the eggs are not 

 always distinguishable. It is customary for the opponents of egg 

 collecting to speak of the vast stores of accumulated material in 

 our great collections as sufficient for all purposes of study. To show 

 the fallacy of this let us glance at the Cat. Eggs Brit. Mus., II, 

 p. 299. Here under the head of Falco f el deggi, Schl. (= F. biarmicus) 

 are catalogued no fewer than 25 eggs. Two eggs without data from 

 " Europe " may be discarded at once. The next seven eggs from 

 South Russia are wrongty ascribed to this species and should be 

 catalogued under F. cherrug. There remain only 4 eggs for Palestine 

 (probably F. biarmicus tanyptents), 10 eggs from Egypt, which are 

 probably correctly as.signed to this species, but may possibly be 

 F. peregrinus pelegrinoides and two eggs from Tangier (= F. biar- 

 micus erlangeri) — F. biarmicus feldeggii is not represented at all : 

 F. b. erlangeri by two eggs only, and F. b. tanypterus by one 

 clutch of 4, and 10 somewhat dubious eggs, in several cases undated 

 and not including a single clutch ! 



The fact is that for scientific study on modern lines much of the 

 material with which our museums are cumbered is absolutely worth- 

 less. At present the only way in which reliable data can be accumu- 

 lated is by the laborious process of visiting and studying all public 

 and private collections, and gradually accumulating, by a process of 

 elimination of all dubious material, really reliable figures and data. 

 I venture to think that the eggs of the Accipitres as at present 

 known can only be studied not only by the examination of the 

 world collections of the British Museum and Tring, or the speciahzed 

 collections of Messrs. Gordon and Swann, but also by placing under 

 contribution the great regional collections such as Mr. E. C. S. Baker's 

 Indian collection and my own Palccarctic series 'as well as the princi- 

 pal local collections in all countries. 



In the following notes, for the sake of uniformity of treatment, 

 I have followed the order and nomenclature of Mr. H. K. Swann's hst . 

 Those species marked with an asterisk are not included in either 

 Mr. Gordon's or Mr. Swann's paper. 



