and now even the old birds suifer with cold. Imagine a Wood Thrush protecting through the long hours 

 of a rainy night her hungry nestlings and rude habitation by her warm body and oily plumage. Without 

 moonlight or starlight, her only company the falling drops of rain, the whistling wind, the sighing trees, 

 and, perchance, the hollow hoot of the Owl, watching for some such morsel as she and her brood. 

 Certainly this is dismal, and well calculated to still the music of the feathered tribes until brighter days 

 and warmer nights return. If you have ever heard the Brown Thrush singing to the rising sun, after a 

 few days of gloomy, falling weather, you have listened to a story of joy beyond the power of an English 

 tongue to speak. 



Bird-life, then, is not all sunshine. It has its lights and its shadows, each individual working out 

 for itself the problem of existence with earnestness and feeling. 



* 



It is very important that there should be well selected and well preserved cabinets of nests and eggs. 

 It is not necessary that these be very numerous ; one for every state would perhaps answer all the 

 requirements. It is prejudicial to bird-life for every amateur ornithologist or oologist to aspire to a 

 cabinet. Few reach their expectations, and abandon their endeavor after sacrificing thousands of birds 

 and breaking up hundreds of homes; and in a few 3'ears their longed-for collection, so far as it has 

 progressed, has been given over to the moth and other insects. It is commendable to love the study of 

 birds, and to hunt up their nests, consider the materials of which they are composed, and measure and 

 classify them. It is also commendable to stud}^ their eggs, compare those from one nest with those of 

 another, and in every way to bring one's self in close relationship with our feathered friends. But it is 

 despicable to rob every nest in wood and field to swell the numbers of a worthless collection. The true 

 naturalist is sparing of life and feelings, and kills and robs only when science demands it. When 

 collections must be made, the collector should exercise moderation as well as skill. It has been 

 recommended by some that but one egg be taken from a nest, thus sparing the birds the loss of home 

 and vouno'. But one e^Q- from a nest here and another from one there would constitute a cabinet of no 

 scientific A^alue, A typical nest of the desired species should be selected, and when filled with the 

 complement of eggs the whole should be taken. If in a tree or bush, the branches should be carefully 

 cut so that the nest will not fall from its position, and when secured they should be so fastened as to give 

 them permanency when dried. The destructible parts of the nest should be soaked with a weak solution 

 of corrosive-' sublimate in alcohol, or powdered with some drug that 'will effectually keep away insects. 

 A label should then be attached, stating loctility in which the specimen was found, the position in which 

 it was built, the date of its collection, the name of collector, and, finally, the Latin and English name 

 of the bird, and by what means the birds were identified. The eggs should be carefully drilled on one 

 side only, cleaned of their contents, dried and sealed. They should then be packed in soft cotton in a 

 small wooden box, the lid of which is labeled accordingly with the nest. When it is thought desirable, 

 the male and female bird should be killed when the nest is taken and skillfully skinned, and these skins, 

 packed in a box, should go with the nest and eggs. A cabinet of this kind would consume much space, 

 it is true, but it would have a value which few collections now possess. Unless some such systematic 

 effort is intended, it will be found much more profitable to the student to content himself with field 

 work; to recoi'd in a field-book all about the birds, their nests and eggs. The last may even be measured 

 without detriment, if handled carefully. N.ever hesitate to take a nest and eggs if its rarity or any 

 other circumstance demands it. Even kill the parents, if necessary, but do not fill your box with every 

 egg within reach, to be blown by the dozen, or perhaps hundreds, marked up with pencil or pen, and 

 lastly to find a place in some obscure drawer, where, faded and moth-eaten, they are as empty in value 



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