212 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



of them, the same, till in time the famous Southern 

 songster would have become a regular visitant to 

 New England. In the same journal still another 

 collector describes minutely how he outwitted three 

 hummingbirds and captured their nests and eggs, 

 — a clutch he was very proud of. A Massachu- 

 setts bird-harrier boasts of his clutch of the eggs of 

 that dainty little warbler, the blue yellow-back. 

 One season he took two sets, the next five sets, the 

 next four sets, beside some single eggs, and the 

 next season four sets, and says he might have found 

 more had he had more time. One season he took, 

 in about twenty days, three sets from one tree. I 

 have heard of a collector who boasted of having 

 taken one hundred sets of the eggs of the marsh 

 wren in a single day ; of another who took, in the 

 same time, thirty nests of the yellow-breasted chat; 

 and of still another who claimed to have taken one 

 thousand sets of eggs of different birds in one sea- 

 son. A large business has grown up under the 

 influence of this collecting craze. One dealer in 

 eggs has those of over five hundred species. He 

 says that his business in 1883 was twice that of 

 1882; in 1884 it was twice that of 1883, and so 

 on. Collectors vie with each other in the extent 

 and variety of their cabinets. They not only obtain 

 eggs in sets, but aim to have a number of sets of 

 the same bird, so as to show all possible variations. 

 I hear of a private collection that contains twelve 

 sets of kingbirds' eggs, eight sets of house wrens' 

 eggs, four sets of mockingbirds' eggs, etc. ; sets of 



