Of course these scientific junkettings are not all roses. There was the heat 

 and the glare of the desert to face on the return journey. And though we es- 

 caped fifty-seven varieties of insect pests by leaving the mountains, we incurred 

 others quite as competent. At George Creek, in Owens Valley, there lives a race 

 of ants with cutting instruments of terrible precision, and a family, or tribe, of 

 mosquitoes, almost microscopic in size, whose envenomed tongues outrank the 

 lashes of the seven furies. Our party, variously disposed over the hard ground, 

 was suffering through the late evening hours in such grim silence as veterans 

 will exact of themselves, when a belated automobile party, three gentlemen, 

 arrived, and proceeded to lay out a luxurious equipment — pneumatic mattresses 

 laboriously inflated, and all that. These gentlemen, being very considerate of 

 the presumptive somnolence of their fellow campers, bestowed themselves 

 swiftly and quietly, and a pregnant silence soon ensued. Finally, "Holy Macker- 

 el\" burst like a rocket upon the midnight air. There was whispered consulta- 

 tion; mattresses were hurriedly deflated, and our considerate friends of unknown 

 visage left for realms, also unknown, where the siren mosquito biteth not nor 

 doth the lowly ant formicate. 



THE ETHICS OF COLLECTING 



By A. Brazier Howell, Pasadena, California 



In a recent conversation with the Editor of the Journal, the present writer 

 chanced to express a few opinions in regard to the ethics of collecting, whereupon 

 he was asked to present, in more concrete form, his ideas on the subject. This 

 is my excuse for straying, in more or less rambling fashion, into pastures that are 

 not altogether familiar to me, for I am not a conservationist in the stricter in- 

 terpretation of the word : rather am I a conservationist of the collector. Would 

 that there existed ten times as many boys just starting the fascinating pursuit 

 of egg hunting, providing that they start, and continue, in the right way: for 

 good sportsmanship is as essential in the collecting game as in football, track, or 

 rowing. 



We are all familiar with the stereotyped reasons for justifying the col- 

 lecting of eggs and birds — and they are good ones. Kill a few stray, bird-hunting 

 cats, and take a few sets of the more harmful hawks and owls, and you have a 

 substantial balance on the right side of the ledger, that will take you some weeks 

 of collecting to balance — a fact, in spite of all that the more rabid protectionists 

 may, and will, say to the contrary. There! — your conscience is fully appeased. 

 But the man on his front lawn and the farmer in his field do not know all that, 

 so you cannot expect them to retain their wonted calm demeanor if you collect 

 everything in sight from under their very noses. 



The most fundamental law in nature is that of self-preservation so, if you 

 like, we will take that as the chief reason for ethical collecting. It is not what 

 you are permitted to take under the law, and for that matter, it is not so much 

 the law either, as it is to play the game right. If you do not, you will not only 

 get yourself into trouble, but all other collectors as well. The great cult of pro- 

 fessional preventers is becoming a power in the land, and in many states they 

 have so drastically throttled the collecting permit that one hardly dares even 

 hesitate by a nest. Where such conditions obtain, we may be reasonably certain 

 that the collector, or rather, a collector, has helped dig the communal grave. 

 The thoughtless shooting of a few birds on a side street of a town, a bushel of 

 seabird eggs, or a few quail for supper during the closed season, may do more 

 harm than a dozen careful collectors can efface in years. An avian white-rib- 

 boner gets hold of the details, spreads it far and wide, and there you are. If we 

 do not put a stop to the activities of the few collectors who are indiscriminate and 

 irresponsible, they will put a stop to all collecting, within a few years. 



U 



