BIRD ENEMIES. 17 



aets 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 e^s of different birds 

 in one season. 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 king- 

 birds' eggs, eight sets of house-wrens' eggs, four sets 

 of mocking-birds' eggs, etc. ; sets of eggs taken in lovr 

 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 mea- 

 sured, and dissected, and described them, and their 

 nests, and eggs, and placed them in her cabinet ; and 

 the interest of science and of humanity now demands 

 that this wholesale nest-robbing cease. These inci- 

 dents 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 thousands, say nothing, 

 but go as silently about their nest-robbing as weasels. 

 It is true that the student of ornithology often feeis 



