162 Canadian Record of Science. 



cemeteiy. Such boys exist all over the country, and war on 

 birds as things made to be killed. . . . The pea-shooter 

 gives no sound, and can be carried in the vest-pocket ; but 

 so< destructive is it in the hands of a skillful child that the 

 legislatures of some of the western states were obliged to 

 pass laws making the sale of the thing a misdemeanor, and 

 preventing the possession or use of it. 



" The destruction of birds by taxidermists, and for alleged 

 ' scientific purposes,' has justly attracted attention and has 

 unjustly brought into disrepute the legitimate collecting of 

 both eggs and birds for scientific use; but much of this 

 alleged scientific collecting is illegitimate, being really 

 done under false colors, or wrongly attributed to science. 

 Of the birds killed or mounted by taxidermists, some, not 

 unfrequently a large part, are for museums or private 

 cabinets : another large share is put up for parlor or hall 

 ornaments, either as groups or singly. All this by a little 

 license, may be allowed as legitimate, or at least not seriously 

 reprehensible. But, unfortunately, the average taxidermist 

 has too often an unsavory alliance with the milliner, and in 

 addition to his legitimate work, is allured into catering on a 

 large scale to the ' hat-trade.' Although a few of them are 

 too-high principled and too much the naturalist at heart, to 

 thus prostitute their calling, taxidermists as a class are at 

 present in deserved disrepute, and are to a large degree 

 responsible for much of the public and mistaken criticism 

 of scientific collecting. This critictsm is perhaps more 

 especially directed against the ' egg-collector,' who ranges 

 in calibre and purpose from the schoolboy, who gathers eggs 

 as hegathers postage stamps or ' show-cards, — for the mere 

 purpose of ' making a collection', — to the intelligent oologist 

 or ornithologist, who gathers his eggs in sets, prepares them 

 with great care, with the strictest regard to correct identifi- 

 cation, and in series sufficient to show the range of variation 

 — often considerable — in eggs of the same species, and takes 

 a few additional sets for exchange. He may have in the 

 aggregate a large collection, numbering hundreds of species, 

 and thousands of specimens : but, ingenei'al, the same species 

 is not laid under serious requisition, and the sets are gathered 



