REV. LEANDER S. KEYSER. 45 
However, before I go farther, I desire to say that no one 
should object to the gathering of avian museums in colleges 
and large cities for purposes of scientific investigation and 
to assist the beginner in the task of identifying species, 
We have no quarrel with the true specialist, who has 
rendered valuable service to all lovers of birds and who is 
as merciful as he can be. But for the professional collector 
who pursues his calling to gratify the whims of private 
persons, mere curio-hunters, no excuse can be made. A 
collector in Canada sends me a long list of eggs and 
“clutches,” and asks me if I do not want to buy. He 
doubtless has sent the same harrowing list to hundreds of 
other bird-lovers. He wants to dispose of his present stock, 
because he is soon going to the far north on an extensive 
collecting tour, and will doubtless return with many rare 
eggs, which he hopes to dispose of to good advantage. 
No! I do not want one of those eggs, for it would be 
nothing to me but a memento of man’s inhumanity to birds. 
Every egg would tell me of a bird’s heart sob. If this 
gentleman should make an expedition for the purpose of 
studying the habits of birds in the Arctic regions without 
killing them or robbing their nests, and then should publish 
his discoveries, I should be glad to buy his book. But 
his empty egg-shells—no, I want none of them. The ghosts 
of birds that might have been would haunt my dreams. If 
that is sentimentality, then I am a sentimentalist of the 
rankest ilk. 
Is there anything so very valuable to science in extreme 
minutiz? Must a hundred birds be ruthlessly slaughtered 
to find out whether there are a few inches of difference in 
their lengths from beak to tail, or from wing-tip to wing-tip? 
Is it an extraordinary contribution to science to be able to 
report that a typical clutch of the beautiful Prothonotary 
Warbler’s eggs measured .72 X .57,.71 X.56, .7OX.58, .71 X.54, 
.70X.59, and .72x.58? How long will the collector himself 
remember those figures? Suppose he had studied the 
