THE OOLOGIST 



129 



MY FIRST EGG COLLECTING 



I have been a subscriber to THE 

 OOLOGIST for several years and 

 have enjoyed reading the stories, by 

 the various Ornithologists and Oolo- 

 gists over the Country, about their 

 experience collecting eggs and speci- 

 mens. 



I have never caught the egg col- 

 lecting craze, but have amassed a 

 nice collection of mounted birds 

 which is nov/ in the State Museum at 

 Charleston, West Virginia. 



Most of my collecting was done 

 several years ago, as I have changed 

 my occupation and my present one 

 does not permit me to spend as much 

 time as I would like to at my hobby. 



As I have stated above I have 

 r.e.er had the "Egg Craze," but will 

 tell of a couple of experiences I have 

 had collecting Hawk eggs, soon after 

 I first began collecting. 



One day in May 1913, my brother 

 and I thought that we would go to 

 the creek, about a mile away from 

 home, to snare "White Suckers" as 

 a few days before we had seen sev- 

 eral nice schools in this Stream, and 

 arriving at the creek we found that 

 the wind was blowing, and that the 

 water was rough for good fishing, 

 so we gave up the idea of fishing 

 and decided that we would hunt for 

 Crow's nests in a strip of wooded 

 land that lay close by the creek. 



In this woods the crows nested 

 every year and we were desiring a 

 young crow for a pet. While strol- 

 ling through the woods, we saw sev- 

 eral nests, but all were uninhabited. 

 Finally we came to a Pine Oak tree, 

 wbich had what looked like an old 

 squirrel nest in the forks about 

 thirty feet from the ground, on get- 

 ting to the tree a Hawk flew from 

 the nest. 



My brother climbed the tree and 

 found the nest contained two eggs. 



but having no way to get them down 

 and not knowing what kind of Hawk 

 egj-s they were, we left them in the 

 nest and returned home. When we 

 got home we took a couple of small 

 hen's eggs and water color paint and 

 colored the hens eggs as near like 

 the hawk eggs as possible. 



Next vve prepared to go back to 

 the nest, taking a small bucket filled 



V :th cotton to carry the eggs, a small 

 rteel trap and a shotgun. On arriv- 

 ing at the nest the old bird on, who 

 promptly flew, v.-e took a couple of 

 rhcts at her but missed. 



.' ftcr clim'bing the tree again we 

 tr.ok ort the hawk's eggs and put in 

 the camouflaged hen's eggs, and set 

 the steel trap in the nest and tied 

 the chain to a limb. As it was get- 

 ting late v.e did not visit the nest 

 again that day. 



Th? next morning my brother re- 

 frned to the nest and found the 

 c!d Hawk caught in the trap, which 



V e identified as a female Broad Wing 

 vhich I mounted and is now in my 

 collection. 



A few days after this we were in 

 this same woods and found a large 

 net in a white pine which proved 

 to be a Sharp Shinned Hawk nest, 

 containing a set of fine eggs, like 

 hen's eggs, in this instance being two 

 large eggs. We took plaster paris 

 and made a set of artificial eggs 

 coloring them with water corors as 

 near as possible like the real ones. 



We took out the hawk eggs and 

 put the artificial ones and set a small 

 steel trap as in the first instance. 



The old bird was not so easily 

 caught as the first one, as she man- 

 aged to push the trap out of the nest 

 several times, but finally got caught 

 by the neck. This hawk is also 

 mounted and is now in my collection. 



This was some of my very first 

 collecting and as 1 had never seen a 



