CORRESPONDENCE 233 



have been able to get but one egg. The man who found the nest 

 saw the old bird on and supposing it was a hawk which had made 

 himself quite at home among his chickens, fired into the nest and 

 out came the owl, winged. He then climbed the tree and found 

 live eggs, four of which were broken to pieces ; the good egg he 

 gave me. The nest I think must have been in quite an unusual 

 place. It was in a cluster of small yellow pines not more than 

 thii-ty or forty feet from the ground. The Duck-hawk's eggs 

 which Allen told you about I have. They are all marked very 

 much like the egg of the Fish-hawk and are considerably larger 

 than the egg you let me have. 



I hope your son will secure a good lot of eggs in Vermont. 

 The Hawk Owl nests there, I am told, abundantly, in some sections 

 and the Bald Eagle nests about Lake Champlain. A gentleman 

 who visited there told me that several pairs have nested there for 

 many years. I want very much to get the Eagle's eggs. One of 

 my hunters who went to Michigan some four years since found 

 the nest of the Bald Eagle and climbed to it, and found three 

 eggs in it. He said he thought he would let it be three or four 

 days longer and get four or five eggs. He waited and went to it 

 again and found the nest robbed and torn down. I think I should 

 not have felt very badly if he had taken the three without waiting 

 for more. So it is one disappointment after another. 



November 29, 1872. 

 You ask why it is that most all naturalists are doctors. I 

 have often asked myself the same question when looking over the 

 Naturalist's directory and seeing who are the contributors to the 

 Naturalist. I suppose it may be accounted for in two or three 

 ways. In the first place our preliminary studies have a tendency 

 to develop a taste for the sciences. Second, our rides through 

 woods and by sti'cams every day of our lives lead us to observe 

 everything in the vegetable and animal world to relieve us from 

 care and we soon become interested in some department of science ; 

 and again, we can collect ourselves and being acquainted over a 

 large circuit we can interest very many persons and get them to 

 collect for us. Every Indian relic and every rare bird or animal 

 or egg that is found within ten miles of me is surely brought to 

 my office. I have just mounted a splendid otter that was killed 



