THE OOLOGIST 



61 



blood. Then lift them all up, and plug 

 wounds with cotton, carefully fill up 

 the space between the eyes and eye- 

 lids with cotton, and wash again, very 

 thoroughly. Now apply very liberally 

 the cornstarch. It will form a paste 

 probably. With a tooth brush, take 

 this off, and apply more. Gradually 

 the pastiness will discontinue, and the 

 feathers will assume their individual 

 shape. Now shake, apply more corn- 

 starch and when the pastiness stops 

 entirely, begin using your old tooth 

 brush. Brush and shake. The feath- 

 ers will become fluffy. Put more corn- 

 starch on if necessary, and continue 

 to brush and shake. Eventually you 

 will not know the bird had been shot 

 in the face. 



The gasoline-plaster paris method is 

 no doubt good, but to me water is 

 more agreeable than gasoline, and 

 surely less expensive. The~ cornstarch 

 is generally easier to get than gaso- 

 line. George M. Sutton. 



Hints On Egg Blowing. 

 By J. H. Bowles, Tacoma, Wash. 



The first set of eggs that I have on 

 record as personally collected is that 

 of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird N-2, 

 taken by my brother and myself at 

 Canton, Mass., in June, 1882. One egg 

 was broken in blowing, so the remain- 

 ing one was turned over to my father, 

 v/ho was successful in making a per- 

 fect specimen of it (something of a 

 feat for a man who had never even 

 tried to blow an egg before.) 



I advanced gradually in the study 

 of oology, evolving and discarding 

 many strange ideas. Among these 

 was the theory that an egg was at its 

 best when blown with a good big hole, 

 whether it was fresh or advanced in 

 incubation (let me pause here to say 

 that some collectors of modern times 

 seem to be of that same opinion). This 

 was especially true of big eggs, such 



as Red-shouldered Hawks. I thought 

 these fine large eggs surely were wor- 

 thy of the full capacity of my very 

 largest drill. Happily I outgrew this 

 stage before many years, gradually re- 

 ducing the size of the hole until now 

 I can prepare an egg in moderately 

 presentable shape. An egg the size of 

 that of the Crow, unless considerably 

 advanced in incubation, should not 

 require a hole larger than will admit 

 the head of a common pin. A hole the 

 size of the body of a pin is amply large 

 for warbler eggs and the like. Per- 

 sonally I like even smaller holes, but 

 perhaps I am something of an extrem- 

 ist in that direction. 



Another disastrous scheme was try- 

 ing to have the hole free from the lin- 

 ing of the shell. This utterly useless 

 idea ruined several rare sets for me 

 as first class material before I threw 

 it into the discard. Blow your egg, 

 clean it thoroughly with water, dry it, 

 mark it with the A. O. U. number and 

 the number of your own set-mark, and, 

 if you have done your work neatly, no 

 reasonable collector will find any fault 

 with it. Mark the egg with small fig- 

 ures, one number above the hole with 

 the other below it. Some of our very 

 best collectors use ink in marking 

 their specimens, but I greatly prefer a 

 very soft lead pencil for many rea- 

 sons. 



Still another of my numerous mis- 

 takes was in using small shot to re- 

 move the membrane from an incubat- 

 ed egg after the rest of the contents 

 had been removed. Again eggs were 

 made second class and much time 

 wasted before I found that, by filling 

 the egg with water and twisting a 

 horsehair around in it, the membrane 

 could be removed quickly and easily. 

 In eggs of warbler size and smaller a 

 fine hair should be used, and care 

 should be taken that it does not dou- 

 ble together inside the egg. I think 

 that I can safely say that this method 



