In North- West Canada. 195 



My next find was a nest and four eggs of the clay-coloured 

 sparrow ; the nest was built in a bush, two feet above the 

 ground, and made of dried grass, lined with horse hair, and the 

 co-os aiv greenish-blue, finely spotted with brown at the larger 

 ends. . 



I sat down beneath a pine tree and rested for an hour, after 

 which I got up and turned back towards Winnipeg, which was 

 nine miles away. 



On the return journey I found several clutches of king 

 birds and other common birds, such as catbird, red-winged 

 starlings, and robins, but I did not take these, as I had pre- 

 viously collected several sets, and do not believe in taking 

 every egg that comes in one's way. Had I taken all the eggs 

 I found while in the North-West, I should have returned home 

 with five times as many as I did. Take coots, for instance, 

 out of some thirty odd clutches I found at Long Lake, I only 

 took three clutches. At Rush Lake I could have collected 

 close upon five hundred eggs of the avocet, and I felt some- 

 what greedy on afterwards counting the eggs to find I had 

 taken over one hundred specimens. Young collectors, when- 

 ever you come across a heronry or gullery, don't take every 

 egg that comes in your way, be satisfied with a few clutches, 

 sufficient to show the variation in size, colour and markings 

 and if you want a few duplicates to trade off, be satisfied with 

 a limited number of sets, and don't carry off hundreds of eggs 

 of one kind. Great care should also be taken not to take eggs 



<T>O 



that are advanced in incubation, which the collector will prob- 

 ably find useless when he gets home and begins to blow them. 

 I have heard of young collectors visiting a gullery and taking 

 away a large basketful of eggs, and on reaching home, finding 

 the greater number could not be blown had to throw them 

 away as useless. For years I have made it a practice to try 

 one egg out of every clutch when incubation had started, and 

 on finding the egg could not be prepared decently, I have 

 always left the remaining eggs in the nest, unless the species 

 happened to be very rare, and then a second class set is better 

 than none at all. Young collectors should also never take 



