176 



THE 00L0QI8T 



finds his counterpart in the scientific 

 collector (usually a man of means and 

 education), whose sets represent vari- 

 ous fauna carefully and accurately as- 

 sembled by personal endeavor, ex- 

 change with reputable, licensed col- 

 lectors and by purchase. We are in- 

 debted to such for kind identification 

 of freak specimens and much oological 

 advice and their collections (as previ- 

 ously noted in the Oologist) are usual- 

 ly given or bequeathed to some museum 

 where they serve public education. 

 They are to be congratulated without 

 envy. 



By sequence we come to the garden- 

 er and his proteges and it is within 

 this classification that the writer must 

 list himself. In my early collecting, 

 done many years ago in Southern Ver- 

 mont, 1 was encouraged by my father 

 but he made certain stipulations which 

 I have endeavored to observe_ One of 

 these was to take no unidentified egg. 

 This has meant many a half holiday 

 spent in patient ambush every hour of 

 which was worth while since it made 

 me acquainted with other and varied 

 forms of life. Another was to glean 

 by study and observation the habits 

 and economic status of my bird friends^ 

 A direct result of this wa's the earning 

 (with pennies as the unit of exchange) 

 of Stearns and Coues New England 

 Bird Life, 2 Vols., a quaint publication 

 still valued. From its pages I derived 

 much pleasure and information but 

 from my walks afield and close obser- 

 vation much more. Since opportuni- 

 ties for exchange were few his further 

 counsel was to take no duplicates un- 

 less because of some special interest. 

 But at the forefront of his advice was 

 this thought. "All scientific study 

 carries an obligation to the instructor. 

 The birds have sacrificed a setting to 

 your information and it is incumbent 

 on you to make their subsequent nest- 

 ings safe by the erection of nesting 

 ]?pxes, establishment of feeding sta- 



tions and by protection against their 

 natural enemies." Under such tutelage 

 I came to love the birds and, because 

 oology is a logical stepping stone to a 

 more accurate and and wider knowl- 

 edge of bird life, I am glad to be count- 

 ed among its students. 



TEXAS NOTES FOR 1921 



Ramon Graham reports the follow- 

 ing: 



In the last two months I have mount- 

 ed over three hundred Texas Horned 

 Frogs, for myself and parties desiring 

 them for souvenirs of Texas. Lots of 

 them were full of eggs but to my sur- 

 prise I found thirty-one eggs in one 

 frog. I think this is a large amount 

 of eggs for one frog to lay and if they 

 all hatch this country will never be 

 out of the little bug eating frogs. 

 These frogs are a great help to gar- 

 deners around here, as they will soon 

 eat every bug or insect that is in the 

 gardens. One gardener reported that 

 the bugs had attacked his water 

 melons and that a spraying outfit did 

 not hurt them, so he got the kids busy 

 catching horned frogs and put them in 

 the garden and inside of a week all 

 the bugs were gone and he made a 

 good watermelon crop. 



Wliile collecting over the prairies 

 through north Texas I have come upon 

 many Terrapins or dry land turtles. 

 These turtles never go about the 

 water and live together on dry land. 

 They spend the summers in the open 

 and in winter they go in holes. I 

 have tried to find their eggs but to 

 date have had no luck. 



While collecting along the Mexican 

 border I have run across many of 

 these curious animals. They remind 

 me of an opossum and feed mostly at 

 night. Their food consists of bugs, 

 ants, insects and it is claimed tlia't 

 they rob wild turkeys' nests but this 

 lias not been proven to me. I do not 

 think they hurt the Wild Turkey sup- 



