XX 
London, you can for a comparatively small sum, for four 
or five shillings each, buy the eggs of the Andalusian 
Hemipode, Buff breasted Sandpiper, Knot, Curlew Sand- 
piper, and many others nearly as rare, and the Little 
Stint for £1, and, after an interview with some 
friend who understands the subject, find yourself in pos- 
session of small Quail’s eggs, and varieties of Redstant’s 
and Snipe’s, and the yellow type of Temminck’s Stint; 
the value of all which may reach 2s. 6d. 
This system, for it has survived sufficiently long 
without practical exposure to be called a system, is not 
confined to London (though elsewhere it may partly be 
the result of ignorance in the dealer himself), and is well 
known, not only in the trade, but by any private collector 
of experience, but it is not known to the school boy who 
has saved up his pocket money with view to become pos- 
sessed of some special rarity, which he has long coveted. 
It is fortunate that there are persons in whom con- 
fidence remains unshaken, as Mr. Marsden, Mr. Doncaster, 
Herr Moschler, Herr Schliter, Mr. Pember, Mr. Abbott 
Frazar. 
It might be said “let young persons buy their own 
experience:”’ but I was too much bitten myself, when at 
the University of Cambridge, to view that process of pur- 
chase with any complacency, or even patience; and I 
should be delighted if any word of mine were useful to 
protect the shallow pocket of unwary youth. 
In my University days you might visit the fens of 
Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, and the broads 
and coasts of Norfolk, and come back, as I have done, 
with the spoils of the Moor Buzzard, Great Crested Grebe, 
and Savi’s Warbler ; and fromthe fenmen procure British 
specimens (mine are still unfaded) of the Redshank, 
Oyster Catcher, Avocet, Reeve, Kite, Montagu’s, and Hen 
