242 
Notes and Comments. 
a wholesale manner filched the entire clutch. He especially 
deprecated such action in the case of rare birds. Some of 
these collectors did not appear to care by what means they 
obtained the eggs, nor did they pay much heed to the law. 
EGGS AND THE EGG-COLLECTOR. 
He would instance some recent cases cited by the British 
Ornithologists ’ Club in their own ‘ Bulletin/ No. CCLXI. It 
was there stated that on March 23rd, 1921, after the Oological 
Club Dinner, a member of the club displayed — presumably to 
admiring and probably envious colleagues — a ‘ remarkable 
exhibit/ consisting of 40 clutches of the Red-backed Shrike, 
all taken in one season, being the full layings throughout one 
season of no fewer than forty pairs of birds. It appeared also 
that the same person had already collected 500 separate nests 
of the same species at various times. Another collector 
exhibited on the same occasion a series of 24 clutches of the 
Spotted Flycatcher’s eggs, stated to be from Kent, Radnor, 
and elsewhere. A third member of the Club showed a series 
of 14 clutches of the Pied Flycatcher, from Northumberland 
and Radnor. In his (Lord Buxton’s) view the taking of 
clutches of eggs in this deliberate and wholesale way was 
altogether a wrong thing, and he found it difficult to believe 
that any additional or adequate scientific advantage was to 
be gained, or that any sufficient scientific justification could 
be made out for such action. 
PROTECTION OF EGGS. 
He must point out also that the eggs of both the Pied and 
the Spotted Flycatcher were protected in Radnor and Kent, 
and that the eggs of the Red-backed Shrike were protected in 
24 counties. It would appear, therefore, that there must 
have been distinct infringement of the law by the collector or 
his agent. Moreover, the action of collectors who did these 
things under the name of Ornithologists constituted a direct 
encouragement, nay, a temptation, to the trading collector 
and dealer to rob nests and to trouble little about the law. 
He would therefore ask members of the British Ornithologists’ 
Union (and he asked it in all friendliness, for he had great 
admiration and respect for ornithologists as a body) how they 
could justify these depredations and the example they set 
to others by their action. Public opinion must be expressed. 
Thanks to public opinion, Egrets were being saved from 
extermination abroad ; and public opinion would, he believed, 
insist on the law being observed and strengthened in order to 
prevent wild birds of the United Kingdom from being exploited 
or possibly, exterminated, or our bird life impoverished, 
by collectors, whoever they might be. 
Naturalist 
