THE OOLOGIST 



305 



at them— almost. He thought he would 

 get ahead of the bugs by "sterilizing" 

 them, so he put the box into the oven 

 for an hour or so. It "fixed" the bugs 

 but it melted the solder and his nice 

 box all fell to pieces. He used sand 

 after that as the bugs were not attract- 

 ed by it. 



I was once told that.it was nonsense 

 to blow eggs— they were just as good 

 without — 'twas a useless waste of 

 breath. I happened to find a Red- 

 winged Blackbird's egg soon after and 

 thinking I would try it put it away in 

 my box without blowing. The weather 

 was pretty hot and I did not go there 

 again for quite a while, but when I did 

 * * * * There wasn't any Blackbird's 

 egg or any other egg in that corner of 

 the box. It must have exploded with 

 tremendous force— comparatively — for 

 it had blown a hole in the sand full 

 three inches across and thrown a Chip- 

 pie's egg that was near it against the 

 side of the box so hard that it was 

 cracked. 



Moral No. 1— Blow your eggs. Moral 

 No. 2 — Don't believe everything you're 

 told. 



We had never heard of the A. O. U. 

 or Ridgway's check list, so we had to 

 do the next best thing— make one for 

 ourselves. Each egg had a large num- 

 ber written on its side, and on the lid 

 of the box was pasted the "key" to the 

 collection. Data was never thought of 

 at all and although we often took a 

 complete set of eggs, three out of four 

 were "traders" and our regular col- 

 lection was all singles. Our highest^ 

 authority was not the A. O. U. nor 

 Coues' Key but the one who had the 

 most eggs. One hundred eggs was 

 considered an immense collection. 



I give a list of my collection at that 

 time from an old ''key", which will 

 show what names we used for the com- 

 mon birds. I have put in the A. O. U. 

 numbers so that you may know to what 

 the names refer. Hen. Runt egg. 



Hen Hawk, 339. Yellow-hammer 412. 

 Guinea Hen, Domestic. Turtle. 



Pigeon, " Meadowlark, 501. 



Crow, 488. Crow Black, 511. 



Yellow-billed Cucoo, 387.. Robin, 761. 

 Starling, 498. Bobolink, 494. 



Tree Starling, 498. Yellow Bird, 652. 

 King Bird, 444. Bauk Swallow, 616. 



English Robin, 595. Barn " 613. 

 Blue Bird, 766. Chimney " 443. 

 Cat " 704. Eave " 612. 



Lazy " 495. Barn Phoebe, 456. 



Potato" 581. Bridge " 456. 



Grou'd" 581. Tree " 467. 



Cherry" 619. Swamp Wren, 725. 



Brown Tbrush, 705. House " 721. 

 Fire Hang, 507. Wild Canary, 529. 



English Sparrow. Chippy, 560. 



The "Starling'' was a bird which 

 built in bunches of dock, weeds, etc., 

 while the "Tree Starling" was the 

 same bird nesting in a tree. Some of 

 the boys thought the latter a different 

 kind of bird laying a larger egg. A few 

 had Swamp Black's eggs, the same thing 

 again building in a swamp. I don't 

 know why the Grosbeak was called 

 English Robin, probably on account of 

 its red breast. Certainly it is not like a 

 Robin in any other way. The Lazy 

 Bird was and is still so called because 

 it is too lazy to make its own nest, and 

 the Potato Bird was any bird that built 

 in a hill of potatoes. Generally it was 

 a Song Sparrow, but I have one egg, 

 given me by a truthful (?) "big boy," 

 which is totally different. It looks 

 more to me like an Orchard Oriole's 

 but it was a treasure whon I first got it. 



The Cherry Bird was and is rather 

 uncommon in our locality. The one I 

 had then came from the home of an 

 aunt in Massachusetts where they were 

 nearly as common as the cherries they 

 fed on. I have since found three nests 

 at Wethersfield. 



There is a queer thing about the Eave 

 Swallow— Cliff the A. O. U. has it. 

 When my father was a boy eveiy barn 

 had its flask shaped nests under the 

 eaves. On my grandfather's they made 

 such a mess that he had to knock the 

 nests down. He broke them up in 

 threo or four years but they used to 



