BRIEF DIRECTIONS 



COLLECTING AND PRESERVING 



BIRDS' NESTS AND EGGS. 



If you are desirous of making a collection of eggs of the birds of 

 any locality, tlie following directions may aid you : 



Remember that an egg has no financial or scientific value if it has 

 no name. Therefore, be very partictdar to identify all eggs collected". 

 If you do not, you will have in many respects a worthless collection. 

 If the eggs in a nest are strange or unknown to you, do not touch 

 them until you have procured the parent bird. If you cannot skin the 

 bird, preserve its head, wings, and feet until you can have them iden- 

 tified. The student of Oology should by all means learn to skin birds 

 and put them in proper shape. He will then make few mistakes in 

 his data. 



Empty the contents of an egg through one smoothly drilled hole 

 in the side, and drill it as small as can be got along with. Force the 

 Contents out by blowing into the hole with a blow-pipe. Do not make 

 holes at the ends of an egg for the purpose of blowing the contents 

 out. Do not hold it too tightly in your fingers, for, if it breaks, you 

 will learn at once that a thing of beauty is not always a joy forever. 

 If the embryo is partially developed, the hole must necessarily be 

 made larger, and the embryo should be extracted a little at a time with 

 an embryo hook or forceps, and cut in pieces with a fine, narrow-bladed 

 scissors. By soaking the egg in water over night the embryo will often 

 become very tender and can be taken out with ease. 



After the egg is blown it should be thoroughly rinsed by taking 

 water into the mouth and spirting it through the blow-pipe. 



Eggs, as a rule, should be kept in sets ; a " set " being those taken, 

 from any one nest ; and each one of a set should bear a number refer- 

 ring to a corresponding one in a note-book where full particulars of 



453 



