OOLOG.IST'S EXCHANGE. 



OOLOGIST'S EXCHANGE. 



ARTHUE E. PETTIT, 



Chairman. 



Published Monthly at 20 Cents per Year. 



TERMS OF ADVERTISING. 



FiveLines $0 50 I One Inch $100 



Half Column 3 50 Column 7 00 



Address all communications to Oologist's Ex- 

 change, P. O. Box 2060, New York City. 



Entered at the Post Office in New York as second 

 class matter. 



EDITORIAL. 

 E. Webster, Cresco, Iowa, proposes 

 to revive his former paper, The 

 Hawkey e O. & O., on a slightly smaller 

 scale than the old O. & O. Mr. W.'s 

 popularity will, no doubt, within a few 

 months after starting the new journal, 

 bring him sufficient support to bring 

 his paper np to size of old one. The 

 contents, of course, will be of same 

 good quality as all his work. 



The Wolverine Naturalist is to out- 

 ward appearances one of the most 

 flourishing of all. 



once abundant feathered friends have 

 very nearly disappeared from the con- 

 tinent. They shoot, shoot, leaving half 

 their specimens to lie and rot where 

 they drop, because they do not care to 

 take the trouble to search for them, 

 and then in a few years write to their 

 favorite Magazine and ask why certain 

 species have almost disappeared from 

 their section. The disappearance of 

 the birds is also due to another habit 

 practiced by the same class of persons, 

 viz., that of excessive eix^ collecting. 

 I do not condemn the practice of fair 

 egg collecting, far from it; but I do 

 most thoroughly condemn the practice 

 of excessive collecting. To secure, 

 where a certain species is abundant, 

 six or seven set a season to complete 

 your and perhaps your friends' collec- 

 tion or perhaps exchange for some 

 other species not in your cabinet, is 

 perfectly right and proper, but when it 

 conies to taking twenty-five or thirty 

 seta week or robbing the only eagle's 

 nest for miles around and thus driving 



away one of the noblest and most ma- 

 jestic feathered creations of the Al- 

 mighty from the spot where, perchance, 

 lie has with his mate made his home 

 fo*r years, or worse still, brutally shoot- 

 ing both male and female, ostensibly 

 for the purpose of identification, over- 

 looking the fact that he has been 

 watching the pair for days and weeks 

 to make sure of their classification, 

 and then publishing an account of his 

 exploit in the publication which he 

 honors occasionally with contributions 

 and gloating over it, asking his read- 

 ers, "if they don't wish they had his 

 good luck," it is then time for all hon- 

 orable Ornithologists to ostracize this 

 person, and failing by this method to 

 put a stop to his dastardly practices, to 

 leave no effort untried to secure such 

 legislation as will inflict a heavy fine 

 on him for every similar transgres- 

 sion. 



I have in my possession an article 

 written by one of these persons in 

 which he boasts of collecting in one 

 day, " 16 of the Osprey, 114 of the 

 Green Heron, 17 Tree Swallows, 14 

 Seaside Finches, 4 Sharp -Tailed 

 Finches, 19 Clapper Kails, not count- 

 ing about 60 or 70 which were broken 

 before he got them home." He heads 

 the article, "My Favorite Collecting 

 Grounds," and mentions that the above 

 description is only a specimen day. He 

 lives within 150 miles of the great 

 metropolis of the New World, and at a 

 place where birds of any kind are never 

 too abundant. This same person want- 

 ed to know the next year, if any one 

 could explain the reason why so few 

 birds visited his locality. It is a com- 

 mon practice with these parties to 

 ascribe the gradual deficiency in the 

 number of birds, year by year, to the 

 "pot hunters," forgetting that "pot 

 hunters" shoot only the Rail, Snipe, 

 Duck and others of an edible charac- 

 ter, and at a season of the year when 

 the nesting season had gone by some 

 months. As before said, they air their 

 views through the several Magazines, 

 and owing to the negligence or indif- 

 ference of the proper authorities, are 

 allowed to continue on their revolting, 

 hoggish and disgusting course, year 

 after year, with hardly a dissenting 

 voice. The matter should be stopped. 

 Now or never is the time to organize 

 and put a stop to the brutal extermina- 

 tion of one of the most beautiful crea- 

 tions. The gentlemen, who never 

 condescend to mention a bird, except 

 bv its Latin phraseology, sit with fold- 

 ed hands and bemoan the fact that our 

 birds are disappearing, make a feeble 

 effort to stop their being used for mil- 

 linery purposes, and failing in this, 



