78 
HINTS ON CAGE-BIRDS. 
It is only by tlio most careful observations, continued through 
successive seasons, that one’s eye becomes educated to note every 
indication of the probable presence of a nest ; but in time one learns 
not only what to look for, but just where it is most likely to be 
found, what tree, shrub, hedge, bank, or sandpit is most likely to be 
worth examination. On one occasion, passing a deserted chalk-pit 
with a friend, I suddenly stopped and pointed to a spot some forty 
feet from the bottom, saying — “ There is a nest.” He replied, “ O 
come now, you are not going to tell me that you can see a small 
nest at that distance ? ” I answered, “ Do you see an evenly 
rounded little hollow? that regularity represents the cup of a nest, 
and I am going to prove it to you.” 1 clambered up and brought 
down a Ycllowhammer's nest, to his unbounded surprise ; he 
declared that I must have “ the eye of a hawk,” but I assured him 
that it was simply a case of education, acquired by persistent and 
reasoning method in collecting. One cannot learn these things all 
at once, they are not instinctive. 
These instances will be perhaps sufficient, without adding to 
them as 1 might easily do, to prove to the reader that very many 
nests are comparatively safe from discovery by rustics and untrained 
sight generally. This faot is far more potent in saving our British 
songsters from molestation than is the “Wild Bards’ Protection 
Act.” As a matter of fact, most of the nests of our more interes- 
ting and rarer songsters were as safe before the introduction of the 
Act as they have been since, excepting when searched for by an 
experienced collector; it is unusual to meet with rare eggs among 
those strung and hung up in country cottages, such as there are 
have been accidentally stumbled upon. 
Although it is necessary, wlien collecting (as I was) with 
a scientific object, to take entire nests or complete clutches of eggs 
to represent the different birds in one’s cabinet, I by iao means 
recommend the young collector or the general student of hird-lifo to 
do anything of the kind. One egg, with a memorandum as to the 
mi mber found; and a deserted nest, when he is sui*e of the builders, 
will answer every purpose for him, and will make things less 
annoying for the birds ; moreover, if a marble, coloured somewhat 
like the eggs, is substituted for the one abstracted, the owners will 
be less likely to desert the nest, as some birds will do when one egg 
is taken away. 
When I began to collect I was ignorant of the correct method in 
which eggs ought to be blown, so that I adopted the old-fashioned 
plan of making a pinhole at each end and blowing the contents 
thro ugh. This did not satisfy me at all ; it not only somewhat 
injured the appearance of my specimens, but it often burst them. 
After a little reflection I concluded that, by boring a rather larger 
hole on one side with a steel drill and inserting a fine blow-pipe I 
might be able to expel the contents from one opening; and I was 
quite taken aback when a well-known ornithologist informed me 
that this was the only scientific way of blowing an egg. 
