Birdsnesting versus Bird-slaying 7 
of the species which nest north of the Tweed; a country I have 
never visited save in the shooting season. 
In this case I confess to numbering in my collection a few eggs 
taken by ornithological friends, who in return have received from 
me specimens from Spain which were for similar causes beyond 
their reach. But “exchanges” conducted on so much narrowed 
and well-defined a basis are not to be classed with the havoc 
wrought by the man who takes twenty or thirty sets of some rare 
bird’s eggs, on the ground that some day in the future they may 
have a pecuniary value as media for ‘‘ exchange,” setting aside 
actual sale. 
Your true birdsnester will ever view eggs obtained by ex- 
change merely as stopgaps to fill the links between species he has 
taken himself, and which are to be weeded out, should fortune sub- 
sequently enable him to watch the birds and get the same eggs 
himself. 
As to buying eggs, perhaps the only egg which can reasonably 
and legitimately be bought is that of the Great Auk, for it is 
clearly impossible to take it oneself or get others to take it. 
It is not uncommon to hear men who are keen ornithologists 
but who for various reasons such as want of time or of opportunity, 
physical inability, lack of nerve or aught else, have never taken to 
the absorbing study of birds in their nesting haunts, decry the practice 
of taking eggs as certain to lead to the extermination of species ; 
and at meetings of our scientific societies I have heard with some 
amusement such men describe themselves evidently with conscious 
pride to the audience as not being “ egg-stealers.” That some of 
them were notorious and open ornithological evil-livers and system- 
atically destroyed the lives of hundreds of birds seemed not to enter 
into their minds at all. The historic result of killing the goose that 
laid the golden eggs is known to all. Save only a few species which 
exist in small colonies whose nests are easily found and egys still 
