82 FIELD ORNITHOLOGY part i 



fine thread : indeed, this is an advisable precaution in most cases. 

 Packing eggs for transportation requires much care, but the pre- 

 cautions to be taken are obvious. I will only remark that there is 

 no safer way than to leave them in their own nests, each wrapped 

 in cotton, with which the whole cavity is to be lightly filled ; the 

 nests themselves being packed close enough to be perfectly steady. 



§ 10.— CAEE OF A COLLECTION 



Well-preserved Specimens will last " for ever and a day," so 

 far as natural decay is concerned. I have handled birds in good 

 state, shot back in the twenties, and have no doubt that some 

 eighteenth-century preparations are still extant. The precautions 

 against defilement, mutilation, or other mechanical injury, are self- 

 evident, and may be dismissed with the remark, that white plum- 

 ages, especially if at all greasy, require the most care to guard 

 against soiling. We have, however, to fight for our possessions 

 against a host of enemies, individually despicable but collectively 

 formidable, — foes so determined that untiring vigilance is required 

 to ward off their attacks even temporarily, whilst in the end they 

 prove invincible. It may be said that to be eaten up by insects is 

 the natural end of all bird-skins not sooner destroyed. 



Insect Pests (Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12) with which we have to con- 

 tend belong principally to the two families Tineidce and Dermestidce 

 — the former are moths, the latter beetles. The moths are of 

 species identical with, and allied to, the common clothes-moth, 

 Tinea flavifrontella, the carpet moth, T. tapetzella, etc., — small species 

 observed flying about our apartments and museums, in May and 

 during the summer. The beetles are several rather small thick-set 

 species, principally of the genera Bermestes and Anthrenus. I am 

 able to figure species of these genera, with their larval stages, and 

 of two other genera, Ptinus and Sitodrepa, through the attentions of 

 Professor C. V. Riley, the eminent entomologist. The larvse (" cater- 

 pillars" of the moths, and "grubs" of the beetles) appear to be 

 the chief agents of the destruction. The presence of the mature 

 insects is usually readily detected ; on disturbing an infested suite 

 of specimens the moths flutter about, and the beetles crawl as fast 

 as they can into shelter, or simulate death. The insidious larvse, 

 however, are not so easily observed, burrowing as they do among 

 the feathers, or in the interior of a skin ; whilst the minute eggs 

 a,re commonly altogether overlooked. But these insects are not 

 long at work without leaving their unmistakable traces. Shreds 

 of feathers float off when a specimen is handled, or fly out on flip- 



