<The §«ttt0 jtatttmltsi : 



A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



No. 29. MAY 15th, 1880. Vol. 1. 



COLLECTING BIRDS' EGGS. 



WE have recently read in the 

 public press several severe 

 chastisements upon the taking of Birds' 

 Eggs, but these, of course, refer to 

 those persons who go about peeping 

 into every hedge-row and corner, and 

 plundering every nest they come across, 

 even tearing the nests themselves to 

 pieces. The condemnation of such 

 conduct cannot be too strong, we share 

 much of the sentiment expressed in 

 most of these newspaper articles, and 

 we sincerely hope that none of our 

 readers are guilty of such conduct. 

 To form a collection of eggs, of a short 

 series of each kind is quite another 

 thing, this is a scientific pursuit, and 

 if conducted in the way we have re- 

 peatedly recommended, that of only 

 taking one or two eggs from any nest, 

 little or no harm will result. It is 

 utterly impossible for every egg that is 

 laid to produce a perfect bird, if they 

 did, this country would soon be over- 

 popukted by birds, and we should 

 suffer in consequence. We are sure 

 none of our readers will require to be 

 told not to carry on this wholesale 

 destruction of birds' eggs, but we hope 



that they will use their influence with 

 others in order to persuade them 

 against such a course ; a true naturalist 

 finds as much pleasure in looking 

 cautiously into a birds' nest, taking 

 care not to disturb a single straw, as he 

 does in being able to look over the 

 collection of eggs in his cabinet 



The late Ed. Newman says, when 

 speaking of the lanes around Godal- 

 m ing : 



" To lovers of birds such lanes have special 

 attractions, for they abound in wild-briary 

 thickets, in which our summer birds delight 

 to hide themselves, and to nestle. When the 

 lengthening days give the first impulse to the 

 feathered tribes to bend their course north- 

 wards for the breeding season, it is here that 

 I listen for the first notes of the Chiff-chaff : 

 here I watch for the Blackcap, the Night- 

 ingale, the Willow Wrens, the Garden 

 Warblers, the Whitethroat ; here hour after 

 hour have I hunted for their nests, my object 

 not being plunder, but information. Often 

 have I covered my hand with scratches, from 

 the prickles of briars and brambles, in my 

 attempts to gain a satisfactory view of a nest 

 and its contents without causing any dis- 

 arrangment, well knowing how great was the 

 risk of desertion if the parent birds should dis- 

 cover anything amiss ; and when deserted, if 

 I knew not the builders, a nest was valueless. 

 How well was I repaid for bleeding hands, if 

 I discovered but one point in the history of 



