innumerable difficulties 
Pie oie ON 
NATURALIST. 
PORTLAND, OREGON 
, SEPTEMBER, 1895. 
WRITTEN FOR THE OREGON NATURALIST: 
OOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS 
On page 89 of the Oregon Naturalist a con- 
tributor treuts, in_a very able article, of the 
needless destruction uf birds by egg collectors, 
The writer computes that collecting 300 sets of 
eggs destroys possibilities which might in ten 
years materialize in the form of between 23 
and 24 millions of birds. 
It is depressing to think what possibilities 
of increase are destroyed by the robbing of a 
few nests, but there is a still sadder side to the 
matter, and that is that bird life is beset by so 
many and such varied dangers that the taking 
of even a few specimens often hastens the ex- 
tinction of a rapidly vanishing species. 
If birds could increase in the manner de- 
scribed by the writer referred to and if curio 
hunters were their only enemies the collector’s 
cabinet could be filled without danger of exter- 
minating any species. We must remember, 
however, that birds have countless foes and 
to contend against, 
Bad weather during the nesting season, lestruc- 
tion of nesting sites by the clearing of the ground 
and in many other ways, check their increase, 
The mowing machine destroys the nests of 
some and hogs and other domestic animals 
destroy others. 
I cannot say what customs may prevail in 
other localities but in this vicinity every small 
hoy has a rubber sling and spends his days 
shooting at everything that wears feathers. All- 
most every man has a shotgun and devotes _ his 
abundant leisure to firing at everything that is 
alive and has no visible owner, Even the 
farmers, whom I regard as by far the most 
intelligent class of men, find their ideal sabbath’s 
rest and recreation in the indiscriminate shoot- 
ing of everything thit has no market value, 
With allthese enenies of birds in the field it is 
really too much fur the professed naturalist to 
joi in the unequal warfare and show his love 
for niture by histening the extinction of the 
rapidly vanishing birds, 
Mark Twain tells us of a man who had de- 
voted years to the collecting of brick-bats, un- 
dl at length his cabinet contained a specimen 
of every species and variety of brick-bat 
n the known world, It must have been a 
magnificent display. Birds and _ their eggs 
often fall victims to collectors of this kind, men 
who have a mania for collecting things, not 
from any real love for science, but from a mere 
ile whim, 
These remarks are true, but are not meant 
to be too sweeping and are not directed at every 
one, In the July Midiologist Mr. Henry R, 
Taylor gives an account of the largest private 
collection of birds’ eggs in the United Sites, 
that of J. Parker Norris. This collection con- 
tains ahout 22,000 specimens, ail in sets, repre- 
senting many years of labor anda cash outlay 
of $10,c00, 
value of a collection like this, andit is said that 
No one can deny the scientific 
it has been made without causing any diminu- 
tion in the numbers of birds, Mr, Norris rare- 
ly takes the second set 0° eggs, and has, no 
doubt done much to atone for the wrongs he 
has inflicted by protecting his victims from 
worse foes, 
