TAXIDERMY. Ill 



and we request travellers to collect, all they can 

 find. The Museum of Natural History in Paris 

 possesses but very few specimens. 



When we have discovered the nest, we must try 

 to procure the male or female before we take it 

 away, for it is very essential to be able to determine 

 precisely the species which constructed it. In all 

 cases we must enumerate the different objects which 

 we have collected, and keep a journal of them, 

 noting the place where we found them, the num- 

 ber of eggs, &c. The most minute details in Na- 

 tural History are highly interesting. After having 

 taken away the nest in a basket or box, we empty 

 the eggs by forming a very small hole at each end, 

 and blowing at one of these ends, the contents will 

 escape at the other, unless the embryo is already 

 formed, and we must then make a bigger hole in 

 die centre of the egg, by which we take out the 

 embryo with a small hook ; we must then stop up 

 the hole by pasting a piece of fine linen or glove- 

 leather over it. The egg thus prepared, will not 

 appear altered, the opening will even enable us to 

 fix it more surely, either in the nest or pasting it on 

 pasteboard, as may be seen in the Museum of Na- 

 tural History at Paris. 



To convey them, we must put a small layer of 

 cotton at the bottom of the nest, then the eggs, 

 and another layer of cotton : we put the nest in a 

 box proportioned to its size, and fill it up in such a 



