The Hawkey e .0. and 0. 



interest in the eaii33 but only care for financial profit. This may 

 sound strange coming from a dealer, but. it is true. Here is the 

 point: from the circumstances itis evident that there can be only 

 a very few persons who can gain a living by buying and selling 

 nat. hist, specimens and of the many who fail there will be some 

 who will resort to illegitimate tricks to gain their ends; and there 

 is no lmisness that I know of that offers such opportunities for 

 trickery as this does. Indcvidiials of many allie 1 species closely 

 lxx'iniilc each other and as in nine cases out of ten the receiver ot 

 these s'lei-i nous has not the specimens at hand to make any com- 

 j'.-n I -<m. . c i> easily cheated., 



1 i a ivn-ot letter from a certain dealer of this class, he stated 

 that lie iiad sold 7,000 bird's eggs last year. Allowing this to be 

 inie, what an imense damage he has done to the cause of the 

 sciense! 



The position of a dealer is a pertleularly advantagous one for 

 a person who wish to study a large series of specimens of one 

 kind and I belive the majority of the better class of dealers are 

 taking advantage of the opportunities presented to them. 



Some time ago I noticed a discription of the collection of Mr. 

 Can - of MadLon, Wis. I study very carefully the thousands of 

 specimens of all kinds that are constantly passing through my 

 hands and make a record of my observations in much the same 

 way as he does. My plan is this: I have one book in which I 

 paste in or write an exact discription of a type specimen of any 

 variety that I have in my collection. I. number this and below 

 keep a record of the name, anther, Vol.. N.o and page of all 

 books magazines etc that in my reading 1 find contains articles 

 on this perficular subject. In a second journal I. keep a copy of 

 all datas received and as each specimen passes through my hands, 



