Mar., 1908 SOME HINTS ON PREPARATION OF AN OOLOGICAL COLLECTION 87 



of bird lovers and students, who while they realized the necessity of judicious col- 

 lecting in all lines of scientific work, entered a strenuous objection against the col- 

 lecting of vast numbers of nests and eggs, most of which found their way into the 

 dusty drawers of private collections, far from the reach of the public or of research 

 work along oological lines. So pronounced has this feeling against "egg-collect- 

 ing" become within the past few years, that many collectors have stopped entirely 

 and many others have become much less active. In the case of the many very 

 large private collections it is to be hoped that the great destruction to bird life 

 caused in amassing the collections may be counteracted to some extent, at least, 

 thru their donation to some public institution where their educational value would 

 be of some importance, while a great many of the smaller collections will probably 

 be disposed of in a similar manner or else made a part of larger private collections. 



It is to be hoped that egg-collecting as a fad will continue to receive the dis- 

 approval of bird-protectionists and of the public in general, but it is equally desir- 

 able that in their zealous espousal of the cause, they do not burden the true oolo- 

 gist with the unpleasant term "egg-collector"; for the judicious collecting of nests 

 and eggs is just as important and just as necessary a part of the study of ornithology 

 today as it was forty years ago (altho possibly on a somewhat smaller scale) and 

 the student of birds' nests, eggs and their breeding habits who has nothing left to 

 learn need only proclaim the fact and we will hail him as the peer of all our revered 

 pioneer ornithologists. 



But in order that a collection of birds' eggs, either public or private, may be of 

 any scientific or educational value it must be arranged and labeled in a thoroly 

 comprehensive manner. No other class of specimens requires careful labeling so 

 much as eggs, for where is the man who can tell the difference between eggs of the 

 Rough- winged and Violet-green Swallow, or between those of the Oven-bird and 

 the lyong-tailed Chat in a strange cabinet, and of what possible use can a collection 

 be put to unless the observer knows definitely what he is looking at? 



The writer has spent some ten years in experimenting with the many different 

 ways of labeling eggs in the cabinet, and what at first seemed a very simple thing 

 indeed, has thru repeated trials and much studying grown to be a rather compli- 

 cated proposition. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to set forth some of the 

 results of these experiments, with the hope that some of the Condor readers may 

 find some hints herein that will be of use to them. Many of the ideas will prob- 

 ably prove old and hackneyed to some of the readers, but if benefit derives to even 

 a few the purpose of the paper will be fulfilled. 



The question of proper housing for the collection is far too broad a question to 

 deal with at length. I have used several designs of cabinets, all of which have 

 proven more or less satisfactory, provided the vertical spacing of the drawers was 

 economized and the drawers ran smoothly. I have also experimented with the 

 Cambridge Cans: metal boxes with a tongue and groove flange on the cover and 

 clasps which make the case air tight. These cans are fitted with tin runners which 

 are adjustable according to the depth of the drawers or trays, but while the theory 

 may be correct the mechanical imperfections of all of these cans I have seen make 

 them impossible for a finely prepared collection. By far the finest case I have seen 

 is the one being adopted by many museum and private collectors and is giving 

 perfect satisfaction. It is of metal strongly cased in wood with a swinging door 

 which closes air-tight by means of binding clasps and a rubber pad. The drawer 

 runners are of hard wood and very smooth and the trays are of hard wood with 

 compo-board bottoms. Taken in all it is an ideal cabinet (in everything but gen- 



