COLLECTION OF NESTS AND EGGS. 31 



habits. Birds of one or another kind will be found 

 nesting in every locality, and in almost every possible 

 situation. It is, therefore, no more practicable to give 

 precise directions for finding nests than it is to say 

 how or where birds themselves are to be sought. This 

 branch of wood-craft, like every other, must be learned 

 from the best teacher experience. 



No portion of the collector's note-book can be filled 

 with memoranda to more advantage than that devoted 

 to the record of nests found and examined. The gen- 

 eral nature of the surroundings, the exact situation of 

 the nest, the materials composing it, the number of 

 eggs it contains, the actions of the parents, the precise 

 date, the condition of the eggs at the time, all these 

 should be duly entered, as items which fade quickly 

 from the memory, and which cannot be subsequently 

 attested by the contents of the cabinet. Few persons, 

 if any, make extensive collections of nests. Many 

 birds make no nests ; others, only such structures as 

 cannot be conveniently preserved ; and those which 

 are eligible for preservation in the cabinet usually re- 

 quire special precautions, such as wrapping or sewing 

 with thread, for their safe keeping. Nests or nesting- 

 places are, therefore, as a rule, described and recorded 

 in the note-book, not kept for study. The contrary is 

 the case with eggs, which may be preserved with ease, 

 affording at once interesting and valuable objects of 

 natural history. 



Eggs, as a rule, should be kept in sets a "set" 

 being those taken from any one nest ; and each one 

 of a set should bear the same number, referring to a 

 corresponding entry in the note-book, where the par- 

 ticulars above mentioned are recorded in full. The 



