56 BIRDS'-NESTING. 



brackets, thus: " Toogleeaiali \_Sqnatarola helvet- 

 ica] ;" the necessary particulars rehiting to the cap- 

 ture and identification being added. Eggs found by 

 the collector, and not identified, but the origin of 

 which he thinks he knows, may be inscribed with 

 the common English name of the species to which 

 he refers them ; or with the scientific name, but al- 

 ways with a note of interrogation ( ?) after it, or 

 else the words ''Not identified." 



In his Field Ornithology, Dr. Elliott Coues ad- 

 vises similarly : ''An egg should always bear the same 

 number as the parent in the collector's record. In a 

 general collection, where a separate ornithological 

 and oological register is kept, identification of agg 

 with parent is nevertheless readily secured, hj mak- 

 ing one the numerator, the other the denominator of 

 a fraction, to be simply inverted in its respective 

 application. Thus, bird No. 456, and egg No. 123, 

 are identified by making the former \^l, and the lat- 

 ter III. All the eggs of a clutch should have the 

 same number. If the shell be large enough, the 

 name of the species should be ^vritten on it ; if too 

 small, it should be accompanied by a label, and may 

 have the name indicated by a number referring to a 

 certain catalogue. According to the present [^. e.. 

 Dr. Coues's] 'Check List,' for example. No. 1 ts^ould 

 indicate Turdus 7nigra(oriiis, The date of collection 



