1879J Birds' -Nesting. 483 
glimpses of the working of the laws which have taught 
birds, as they must in time have been taught, to build nests 
in endless variety of form and material. Little, if anything, 
has been written beyond mere speculation on this subject, 
which presents so much scope for investigation. In spite, 
too, of all the vast collections of birds’ eggs which have been 
made, we are still almost entirely in the dark as to any 
theory, even, of the causes which have tended to produce 
such infinite variety of form and colour for what is really 
but for one and the same end. 
The method of, at one and the same time, limiting the 
tendency to purposeless egg-colleCting, and systematically 
extending our knowledge of the whole subject, which it is 
the purpose of this paper to suggest, is the formation in 
connection with local museums, or, where these do not 
exist, with larger schools, of complete educational collec- 
tions of birds’ nests and eggs. Under the judicious guidance 
of the head-master this might be done with but a minimum 
of wrong to the parent birds in at most three years, and the 
eggs and nests which would be required to complete such a 
collection would be many times fewer than what are an- 
nually destroyed in the same area, and would, by being 
carefully housed and attended to, obviate, as I shall endea- 
vour to show, the necessity for repeated nesting in time to 
come. 
Many years ago I assisted at the formation of such a col- 
lection for a small country museum, and our method of 
preserving and displaying it to the best advantage being 
devised chiefly with a view to economy of space and mate- 
rial, it may be useful to briefly describe it. We took our 
nests generally before any eggs — or but the first — had been 
laid, and binding them carefully with tape or cord we satu- 
rated them or sprinkled them with some preservative liquid 
(methylated spirits and corrosive sublimate solution is best), 
to kill any vermin and keep away moths in the future, and 
then dried them and packed them in drawers or boxes. 
The eggs we got when we could. Our collection being 
nearly complete, we had a wall case about 5 feet high and 
12 inches wide, made with shelves sloping at an angle 
of 45 0 . On the bottom shelf we placed the large nests, 
such as those of the crow, rook, jackdaw, magpie, &c., 
putting into each nest the number of eggs usually laid, not 
necessarily, and indeed seldom, taken from that particular 
nest. On the second shelf, such nests as consist of little 
more than a few reeds or grasses, or a mere hollow scraped 
