144 
THE NIDOLOGIST 
“Brought to Book.’’ 
BY EUGENE S. ROLFE 
HERE are fashions and fads in collect- 
ing and the tendency of Oclogical 
collectors is to run to specialties. 
The general favorite, probably, is the great 
family of Raptores—with the Warblers, 
perhaps a close second; while the Grouse, 
_ the Waders and others have their devotees. 
' In the gathering together of great series of 
sets the selection of favorites is, doubtless, 
practically necessary and in this selection 
our Ducks have been generally neglected. 
Very naturally so, too—when the average 
number constituting a set and the conse- 
quent expense and space required is consid- 
ered, and fortunate indeed is the collector 
who is able to make sets of this great fam- 
ily his specialty. For the family itself is 
worthy of the closest study and,in addition, 
if beauty and attractiveness of display in a 
collection are worthy of consideration, it 
would be difficult to produce a finer effect 
than that offered by a display of Duck sets 
arranged with reference to their finely con- 
trasting shades and tints in their respective 
nests with natural down lining. And, of 
course, any general collection to be repre- 
sentative must contain characteristic 
examples of this as well as of other families 
and if funds for purchase are not available 
and field collecting impracticable, solong as 
exchanges are so readily accomplished the 
disposition of some collectors to ignore 
Ducks entirely is not to be commended. 
But they insist that identification is so 
dificult aud uncertain as to make imposi- 
tion easy and that the only safe course is 
to abandon the Ducks to their fate and turn 
to other lines less dangerous—and I have 
wondered if at some time they have not 
sought the books with a set of Duck’s in 
hand and failing to find the tint accredited 
by the books to that species sorrowfully 
ended the examination right there. And 
yet I believe that experienced ficld collec- 
tors will agree with me that identification 
from the eggs alone even, is scarcely more 
difficult than in the case of most other spec- 
ies and certainly not moreso than with 
eggs of the Grouse and many of the Rapt- 
ores. And in field collecting where the col- 
lector works year after year the same 
limited area and among only a limited num- 
ber of species, he becomes so familiar with 
the appearance, tricks, manner and gaz? of 
the few Ducks of his acquaintance that he 
will in almost every instance be able to 
identify the female flushed without the use 
of the gun, and this even though the male, 
generally so easy of identification, may not 
be at hand and though the females of the 
different species vary so much less—the 
one from the other—than females of the 
Wader family for instance. And when to 
the evidence “of the bird flushed, (generally 
speakiug, this flushing is necessary to the 
finding of every Duck’s nest on land) he 
adds that offered by the nest,eggs and their 
surroundings, he is ina position to name 
his find with as close an approach to abso- 
lute certainty as in the case of almost any 
species lacking conspicuous individuality 
of appearance or producing eggs that do not 
positively identify themselves. As illus- 
trating this statement I might say that I 
have had occasion to shoot for identification 
but twice this season and in each case I 
simply proved my first impressions to have 
been correct. And of fully two hundred 
sets of Duck—covering those of ten Species 
—taken here by myself and others this 
season, I consider that but one set really 
remains in doubt, and this was a case 
where the female was unexpectedly flushed 
and, in getting away, offered no view of 
herself more than sufficient to prove her 
Duckship, and the nine eggs in a nest ap- 
parently not distinctive were of a rich light 
tan color,about a match for the sheep bind- 
ing of a law book. But probably this Duck 
was breeding out of its ordinary range and 
perhaps this—to me unusual coloration— 
though not described in the books, would be 
the very feature that would make this set 
easy and sure to some field collector really 
familiar with the species elsewhere. 
For, surely, the books are, at times, a 
sore trial,—who that has had occasion to 
refer to two or more for help in identifying 
eggs has often found them agreeing, except 
where one simply quoted the other? And 
what, for example, is one to think when he 
finds one really high authority describing 
the eggs of a certain species of Duck in a 
single statement as ‘‘drab colored,’’ and 
another equally critical and accurate author 
pronouncing them unreservedly ‘‘ashy- 
green’’? Of course it is right in the sense 
that his statement is true of specific sets, 
aud each is wrong in that his statement is 
misleading as a general proposition. An- 
other respectable authority, and one that, 
judging by my limited experience, errs less 
seldom than some of his fellows, assures us 
