as in meat. The eggs of the common birds have no value. One dollar will buy twenty-five or thirty 
specimens. The country is stocked with eggs of the Robin and the like, collected by boys and others, 
who either imagine they are advancing the science of oology, or are stimulated to robberies of this kind 
by the insignificant rewards. This, with many other crimes against our birds, should be discouraged. 
All interested in the welfare of the feathered race should join hands in a persistent warfare against 
so-called cabinets of either birds or eggs, and against the savage habit of decorating hats and walls of 
rooms with the skins of our most beautiful birds. 
* 
* * 
Reference is frequently made in the text under “Differential Points” to the following tables as a 
means of easy comparison with one another of the eggs of the summer-resident birds. It is believed - 
they will also be of service for the rapid determination of the grosser characters of nests and as a key for 
the determination of the species of the various eggs. In using them as a key, it should be remembered 
that eggs of even the same kind may vary greatly in size, shape, ground-color, and markings, and that it is 
possible to give only the usual dimensions, etc. Farther, the tables are not intended for the identification 
of eggs which have reached the cabinet, — eggs that are not perfectly known should never enter a collection, 
— : but rather for the aid of the amateur oblogist in his out-of-door woi’k. Exceptional nests and eggs can 
not of course be classified, but nearly all normal examples of eggs of the one hundred and thirty species 
named can, by care, be traced by means of the key to their proper species. When eggs are discovered 
which are not known and can not be identified by the key, the birds should be carefully observed, and, 
if necessary, should be killed in order to determine their species. When by such certain means nests and 
eggs are found within the limits of the State which are not given here, notice should be made of the 
fact in some ornithological journal, that those interested in the oology of Ohio may receive the information. 
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