BIRD ENEMIES 213 



eggs taken in low trees, high trees, medium trees; 

 spotted sets, dark sets, plain sets, and light sets 

 of the same species of bird. Many collections are 

 made on this latter plan. 



Thus are our birds hunted and cut off, and all 

 in the name of science; as if science had not long 

 ago finished with these birds. She has weighed 

 and measured and dissected and described them, and 

 their nests and eggs, and placed them in her cabi- 

 net; and the interest of science and of humanity 

 now demands that this wholesale nest-robbing cease. 

 These incidents I have given above, it is true, are 

 but drops in the bucket, but the bucket would be 

 more than full if we could get all the facts. Where 

 one man publishes his notes, hundreds, perhaps thou- 

 sands, say nothing, but go as silently about their 

 nest-robbing as weasels. 



It is true that the student of ornithology often 

 feels compelled to take bird life. It is not an easy 

 matter to "name all the birds without a gun," 

 though an opera-glass will often render identifica- 

 tion entirely certain, and leave the songster un- 

 harmed; but, once having mastered the birds, the 

 true ornithologist leaves his gun at home. This 

 view of the case may not be agreeable to that desic- 

 cated mortal called the "closet naturalist," but for 

 my own part the closet naturalist is a person with 

 whom I have very little sympathy. He is about 

 the most wearisome and profitless creature in exist- 

 ence. With his piles of skins, his cases of eggs, 

 his laborious feather-splitting, and his outlandish 



