POKING AROUND FOR BIRDS' NESTS 123 



tion between boy and boy to see who could gather 

 the greatest variety. But surely that cabinet,* or 

 old secretary top, which you and I and every real 

 American boy of a generation ago had in his 

 chamber, full of mineral specimens, and birds' nests 

 on their twigs, with the eggs inside, and tiny boxes 

 of rough garnets carefully picked up on our expe- 

 ditions and treasured in the belief that they were of 

 immense value, and perhaps a stuffed owl, and a tin 

 box of plant specimens, and surely an emperor 

 moth mounted on a card, and in the drawer below 

 the precious stamp album surely this old secretary 

 did not bespeak our cruelty, but our curiosity. I 

 am very sure I should hate to give up the memory 

 of my collection. In fact, I have not even given up 

 all of the collection. Gathering dust over one of 

 my bookcases is a cat-bird's nest, on my desk as I 

 write lies a little wooden box of garnets picked up 

 on Mount Monadnock, and until recently my 

 precious lumps of gold and silver quartz lay on a 

 shelf. Alas! one evil day my wife took them all 

 to make a rim around the garden pool, and used the 

 shelf for the complete works of Rudyard Kipling. 

 Yet women complain that men have no sentiment! 

 Still, I have to admit that any but a scientific 

 museum collection of birds' eggs does represent a 

 loss of bird life far greater than the gain to the col- 

 lector. There are plenty of books with colored 

 plates which will answer the purpose, too. The 

 ideal spirit to inculcate in the boy (and the training 

 cannot begin too early !) is a love of birds and a pro- 

 found respect for their economic value, and with 

 that a spirit of vital curiosity to see how they build 



