THE OOLOGIST. 



43 



known only in scattered numbers, 

 here and there, but their natural ene- 

 mies are now diminishing and for 

 some reason they are coming back to 

 their old haunts. — 'New York Tribune, 

 Jan. 27, 07. 

 Editor Oologist: — 



Will you allow an old collector to 

 enter a mild protest against the sort 

 of collecting indicated in the note of 

 inquiry by Clarence Hoard, as cited 

 in the Oologist for December? 



Are we to infer that Mr. Hoard ac- 

 tually took an unknown set of eggs 

 without securing the nest, also? To 

 take eggs whose identity is unknown 

 and virtually un-knowable is bad 

 enough; to fail of taking the only 

 positive clue to identity, after taking 

 the nest, is little short of a blunder. 



There is still a deal of worthless 

 material offered for exchange by our 

 present generation of collectors. 

 Worse yet, there are sets offered with 

 the most reckless disregard not only 

 of identities but of exactness as to 

 the make-up of sets. A Philadelphia 

 subscriber sent the undersigned 1 about 

 a year ago, a job-lot assortment of cor- 

 morant eggs from the coast region of 

 California. When confronted with the 

 combination of ignorance and fraud 

 he pleaded innocence (as they all do), 

 but has not yet shown himself man 

 enough to "make good." 



But where the question of uniden- 

 tified sets is one of ignorance, and not 

 of positive dishonor the remedy lies 

 in greater exactness; and in the tak- 

 ing of pains. We all erred, in these 

 directions, when we were younger; 

 but we try to do better now. 



Ordinarily, it is far better to leave 

 a doubtful set to hatch than to take 

 it without any clue as to its real iden- 

 tity. There is ordinarily no sort of 

 excuse for failure to take the parent 

 bird with a doubtful set; (and there 

 are, let it be observed, more doubtful 



sets taken than most of us might be 

 ready to believe). 



It can be readily proven whether 

 the eggs taken by Mr. Hoard are vireo 

 eggs; or something else placed in an 

 abnormal nest. But the identity must, 

 in any case, be equivocal; and the 

 color suggestions given by Mr. Hoard, 

 in the Oologist, are utterly worthless. 

 (The writer would not trust his own 

 identifications, "in the bush," with 

 birds of the class in question. One's 

 sense of color is modified by too many 

 considerations of shadow and light di- 

 rection to make snap-shot suggestions 

 concerning the color impressions up- 

 on the human eye of more than prob- 

 able value in making determinations.) 



The writer would like to venture the 

 strong urging, upon all younger stu- 

 dents of bird-life, of the positive duty 

 of learning at least the chief elements 

 involved; in the making of bird-skins. 

 There are times when the knowledge 

 thus involved may prove of very great 

 value; and other times when it is ab- 

 solutely essential. For example, in 

 the Wyoming field, where the writer 

 has labored during the "past three 

 years, adding, incidentally, three birds 

 to the state list, fully one-half of the 

 very valuable and interesting mater- 

 ial obtained would have been absolute- 

 ly worthless without the taking of the 

 parent birds. 



Questions of sentiment should have 

 little relative weight, here. Granted 

 that the taking of eggs is a legitimate 

 branch of scientific pursuit, and then 

 it follows, that when absolutely neces- 

 sary, for purposes of specific or of 

 sub-specific identification, the taking 

 of a parent bird is quite as justifiable 

 as the taking of eggs; however much 

 of pain the taking of life may cause 

 us. 



If. then, we are either too tender- 

 hearted of too indolent to verify our 

 egg-findings, let us, by all means, join 



