May, 1922 WASTED ORNITHOLOGICAL MATERIAL 83 
mens coming to their hands; yet one is safe in saying that a much larger pro- 
portion of workers do not do so. The freshly collected bird is skinned and 
properly labeled, and the matter ends there. Surely every newly collected bird 
has in it more of importance than that—has valuable aspects and possibilities 
which can be studied and recorded without in the least depreciating its final 
value as a collection specimen. 
Let us enumerate, in part only, what ways a freshly killed bird can be stu- 
died before it is finally ‘‘made up”’ into a ‘‘skin”’. 
Of these a few are: 1. Its external parts: A. Its measurements. b. The 
color of the soft parts and the irides. 2. Collecting its dermal parasites. 3. 
The weight of the specimen. 4. Preserving its ‘‘stomach’’ and contents. 5. 
Collecting its intestinal parasites. 6. Taking the bird’s body temperature if 
it be secured before or just at death. 
It is quite unnecessary now to discuss some of the items mentioned above, 
for collectors have long since learned that without data relative to them a bird 
skin is scientifically almost worthless. It is, however, proper now to touch 
upon some of the others. 
Probably all birds have dermal parasites. It is an extremely simple mat- 
ter to have on one’s work table, or desk, or in one’s field kit, a few empty 
phials (one dram), and a stock bottle of a 40 percent solution of formaldehyde 
or denatured alcohol; then, before skinning a specimen, one can, with a pair 
of forceps and a little care and patience, and at the expense of very little 
time, pick off the parasites from the bird’s feathers, and save them in a phial 
of preservative. The addition of a label, on which should be written the date, 
locality, and host, makes complete a collected side-issue which will be wel- 
comed by an entomologist, and which may develop large value both in ento- 
mology and ornithology. If any one ask of what value are such parasites an 
answer can be found in articles by Kellogg (Auk, vol. 16, 1899, p. 232) and 
by Ferris (Journ. Mammalogy, vol. 3, 1922, p. 16). : 
The writer makes the collection of parasites his duty when handling a 
“‘flesh’’ specimen. As an example of the value of any one’s efforts along such 
lines, he may be permitted to say that one species of avian dermal parasite 
collected by him had never been collected before in the western hemisphere, 
and also that he was able to help establish the fact that dermal parasites from 
Bohemian Waxwings taken in Colorado are similar to those taken from Old 
World Bohemian Waxwings. All dermal parasites coming from a single speci- 
men should be kept together in one container, and due care should be taken to 
prevent transference of parasites from one specimen to another by avoiding pro- 
miscuous packing together of freshly collected different species. Other para- 
sites frequently are found in a bird’s digestive tract. These, too, should be 
collected, properly preserved and labeled, and sent to a helminthologist. Such 
specimens are always welcome. There is much room for research along these 
lines. An investigation of such parasites may disclose interesting and even 
important relations between birds and associated forms of life; for example, 
as between the intestinal parasites of fish-eating birds, and those of the fish of 
their habitat waters (Butler, E. P., Studies in the Enteroparasites of Birds and 
Fishes of Douglas Lake, Cheboygan County, Mich., 1921 [Thesis, Smith Col- 
legej ; Chandler, Journ. Amer. Med. Ass., March 4, 1922, p. 636). The study 
of the intestinal parasites of man is by no means complete; it possibly might 
