58 
FIELD OENITHOLOGY. 
respecting lavish use of the substance at the outset. If it be true, as some state, that bugs can 
eat arsenic without dying, it is also true that they do not relish it ; and in entering a case of 
skins they will burrow by preference in those holding the least of it. This fact is continually 
exhibited in large collections, where if two birds be side by side, one being duly arsenicized 
and the other not so, one will be taken and the other left. My second item, with its proper 
deduction, will form, I think, a fitting conclusion to this treatise. It is a fact in the natural 
history of these our pests, that they are fond of peace and quiet, — they do not like to be dis- 
turbed at their meals. So they rarely effect permanent lodgment in a collection that is con- 
stantly handled, though the doors stand open for hours daily. As a consequence, the degree 
of our diligence in studying birdskins is likely to become the measure of our success in pre- 
serving them. I once read a work, by an eminent and learned divine, on the Moral Uses of 
Dark Things," under which head the author included everything from earthquakes to mos- 
quitoes. If there be a moral use in the dark thing " that museum pests certainly are to us, 
we have it here. The very bugs urge on our work. 
Fig. 13. — Wilson's School-house, near Gray's Ferry, Philadelphia. From a drawing by M. S. 
"Weaver, Oct. 22, 1841, received by Elliott Coues, February, 1879, from Malvina Lawson, daughter of Alexander 
Lawson, Wilson's engraver. See article in the " Penn Monthly," June, 1879, p. 443. The drawing was first 
engraved on wood, and published, by Thomas Meehan, in the "Gardener's Monthly," August, 1880, p. 248. The 
present impression is from an electrotype of that wood-cut. The size of the original is 5.10 x 3-95 inches. This 
reminder of early days of " Field Ornithology " in America may be further attested by the signature of 
