382 Mousey, Subsequent Nestings. ae 
(4) Will the eggs in the succeeding sets be alike in markings, 
shape, size and number, to the first ones. 
Now we often take up a subject (and so I did this one) without 
fully realizing the rocks ahead, for little did I think then that it 
would take me six years before I could collect even a moderate 
amount of reliable data to work upon, and even now the first ques- 
tion remains only partly answered, and I doubt if it can be fully 
and with certainty by any one. After a start had been made, it 
soon became evident that if my data were to be of any use not only 
would great care have to be exercised in the selection of the ground, 
such as small detached pieces of woodland etc., where only one 
pair of birds of any particular species were domiciled, but I should 
perforce be obliged to put sentiment on one side for the time being, 
and take the sets one after the other as they were laid. Lucky 
the botanist who has none of these distressing things to contend 
with in the pursuit of his favorite study and consequently never 
incurs the displeasure of Mrs. Grundy. Even now I can hear 
that august person saying “Monstrum horrendum,” but there, I 
have not much regard for Mrs. Grundy, for after this article has 
appeared in print I shall, no doubt, later on meet the one arrayed 
in a beautiful! hat, trimmed with an aigrette plume or bird of 
paradise, whilst the other will be boasting of the fifty brace of birds 
he bagged the day before, without the slightest compunction, 
whereas the taking of my sets caused me considerable distress, 
which however, is now over as I do not intend to carry my investi- 
gations any further along this particular line, as I consider the 
answers obtained to all but the first question sufficiently convincing 
to satisfy most people, except perhaps those who are always willing 
and anxious to push things to extremes, and who would kill hun- 
dreds of small birds in their endeavour to prove that they differed 
in some slight degree from the type, when no doubt a dozen speci- 
mens or so would have accomplished the thing equally as well, 7. e. 
if there was really anything to accomplish. 
However, to return to my subject and the table I have prepared, 
from which it will be seen that the time covers the years 1911-1916, 
and that nearly one half of the fourteen birds enumerated belong 
to the Warbler family. This is merely a coincidence, the family 
not having been specially selected, as I had to take a suitable case 
