484 Birds' -Nesting. [July, 
in earth, were contained in round card-board boxes, to hold 
the materials together. These included the nests of the 
curlew, sandpiper, gulls, coot, water-hen, ducks, grebes, &c. 
Smaller boxes held the collection of bones on which the 
kingfisher lays its eggs, the few grasses that the skylark 
lines a hole in the soil with, and so on. Upper shelves held 
the smaller nests ; and when they had been built in holes 
of trees we cut away the branch, where possible. In time 
we had not only a very complete collection, but an additional 
case of such eggs as vary from a common type, and our 
little museum was the favourite resort of all the schoolboys 
in the district ; and it is certain that much less bird-nesting 
for mere nesting’s sake was one outcome of our efforts. 
Sometimes we had brought us varieties which were not 
found in our cases — a result which was most desirable and 
pleasing, as it evidenced an intelligent appreciation of the 
uses of a collection. A schoolmaster who will but inaugurate 
such a collection will certainly be conferring a lasting 
benefit on his pupils, and sparing many a nest from careless 
destruction. Certain it is, too, that if every country town 
and village had its small, well-ordered, local museum, where 
the common objects of animal and plant life — which ever 
will possess an absorbing interest for the young — were dis- 
played in such a manner as to convey some intelligent ideas 
of their life-history and relation to each other, among the 
innumerable benefits which would accrue, one if not the 
least would be that there would be created a sympathy be- 
tween the animals and their keen-eyed observers, and the 
wanton destruction of myriads of them would be dimi- 
nished. 
One of the most pleasant recollections of a short resi- 
dence in a French country town is associated with its 
admirable museum, and the character of its visitors on 
Sunday afternoons. On week-days the students from an 
ecole de medecine shared with me the examination of its well- 
arranged cases ; but on Sunday afternoons troops of peasants 
and their families took the place of the systematic student, 
- — the husband in his clean blouse, the wife in clean starched 
cap of marvellous and stupendous proportions, and the 
children in clean Sunday best. The shouts of the young- 
sters at the wonders of strange foreign betes were only 
passed by their delight at the discovery of old friends like 
M. Crapaud or les petites papillons bleues ; while older school- 
boys conferred together over cases of beetles or bottles of 
reptiles, or related, in audible whispers, exploits with beast 
