A Last Year's Bird's Nest 215 



to collectors. The eggs of our game birds since 

 the settlement of the country, have, to some ex- 

 tent, been used for food, following the customs 

 of savage predecessors. Here is a modern in- 

 stance of how eggs are eaten in the far North, 

 by the natives. When not quite of age Benjamin 

 Rogers, son of Dr. B. T. Rogers, President of 

 Racine College, Racine, Wisconsin, went to 

 Alaska to install an electric lighting plant for the 

 Episcopal Mission at Point Hope. With five 

 natives he paddled sixty miles to an island to col- 

 lect Murre's eggs the Murre incubates a single 

 egg and they filled their skin boat with such an 

 enormous load that it took thirty-six hours* con- 

 stant paddling to make the return trip. This inci- 

 dent is only three years old and my intrepid young 

 friend modestly confided the adventure to me on 

 his return. The vast number of eggs collected as a 

 pastime, could they be brought to light, would 

 surprise the average Ornithologist, and astound 

 the public. As a special Game Warden and Con- 

 servation Warden, I have examined collections 

 so extensive that no one would expect to find their 

 equal outside of a museum. I recall one in par- 

 ticular, the work of a retired farmer, living in a 

 town of eighteen hundred population, carried on 

 for years, the collection hidden in his barn and 

 kept secret from all his neighbors. Though a 

 close-fisted old fellow, he has bought most of his 



