THE BAY STATE OOLOGIST. 



*9 



pellicle, as if you were going to remove it from the egg, and giving the same 

 twirling motion that you did when drilling, the pellicle will be cut all around the 

 edges of the hole, and the drill will come out. Now take your blow-pipe, and put- 

 ting the point of it close to the hole, blow gently and the contents will come out- 

 When incubation is more or less advanced, a larger hole must be drilled, and the 

 embryo removed with the hook and scissors, a tedious operation and not always 

 successful even with the greatest of care. Better let incubated eggs remain in the 

 nest. A little experience will teach you how to differentiate fresh eggs from those 

 that are too far advanced to save, 



Never put the point of the blow-pipe inside of the egg, as a bursted egg will be 

 the result, especially so, if your lungs are well developed. Having emptied the 

 egg of its contents, the next step is to take a mouthful of water and inject it 

 through the blow-pipe into the egg, rinsing it thoroughly. Large eggs should be 

 filled half full of water and well shaken. Eggs treated in this manner are per- 

 fectly clean inside and offer no inducements to insects to harbor within, a thing 

 that they will surely do in eggs prepared in a slovenly manner. Having blown 

 all the water out of the egg, take a soft cloth and wipe it dry, removing any for- 

 eign matter that may be adhering to it, taking care, however, not to rub 

 off the number you put on it when collected, and also notice that you 

 do not rub off any of the markings on it. On some eggs the pigment is 

 only loosely applied on the outside. Now place the egg, hole downwards, directly 

 over one of the holes on your dryer, and it will drain and dry in a few hours ; con- 

 tinue in this way until you clean all your eggs, keeping each set to itself and ad- 

 ding another memorandum in your note-book opposite each set, as to the state of 

 incubation of that set. When the eggs are dry, fill out a data for each set. These 

 particulars are taken from your note-book. Suppose he (the collector) takes the 

 first set, that of the Red-headed Woodpecker. He will fail out a blank as follows : 



No. 375. Name, Red-headed Woodpecker. 



Collector, John Smith. 



Locality, Boston, Mass. 



Date, June 3d, 1887. 



Set mark, 



Number of eggs in set, 4. Identity, bird seen, 



Nest, excavated in an elm tree, 20 feet up ; eggs laid on chips on bottom of cavity. 



The collector will of course substitute his own name, locality and date, for those 

 given above, and if this should prove to be the second, third or fourth set of that 

 species taken during the season, he would mark the set as 2-4, 3-4, 4-4 and so on. 



(to be continued.) 



