68 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVIII 
They would rather impatiently call attention to themselves by giving utterance 
to two high pitched clear notes similar in tone and interval to the beginning of 
the song of the mature bird. 
To summarize briefly the information gained by this series of observations : 
March 23, nest partially built; March 25, nest completed; March 31, one egg in 
the nest; April 1, two eggs in the nest; April 2, three eggs in the nest; April 5, 
brooding began; April 20, all eggs hatched, incubation thus requiring 15 days, 
or, at most, 18 days ; April 26, young open mouths at a slight noise although feed- 
ing had not been observed, and they show well-developed hair-like pin feathers ; 
May 4, young well feathered out, and are fed on an average of 16 times an hour ; 
May 6, birds flew from the nest, 16 days after hatching. 
Berkeley, California, January 20, 1916. 
THE NEW MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE OOLOGY 
By WILLIAM LEON DAWSON, Director 
N THE 27th of January last, a state charter was granted to the Museum of 
Comparative Oology of Santa Barbara. This was the first notice to the 
public of a movement which had been quietly launched several months 
before and which, needless to say, had profited by much private counsel, both 
scientific and lay, before making its corporate bow. At the request of the Editor 
of The Condor, I am writing at some length of the raison d’etre and purposes of 
the new institution and, more briefly, of its proposed methods and its personnel, 
of its building plans and its more immediate program. 
An institution, like an invention, is the realization of a dream. Now it is 
of the very nature of dreams to appear fantastic, impractical, “visionary”. But 
Professor Langley’s dream of a heavier-than-air flying machine has become a 
substantial, if not a “sober”, reality; and Mr. Smithson’s vision of an institu- 
tion “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men” has become the 
bulwark of science in America. However, the dreamer of the Museum of Com- 
parative Oology claims no kinship with these illustrious men. He is only one of 
the crowd, dreaming over again a very ancient and most fantastic dream. For 
what farmer boy, seduced from the furrow by the warm breath of spring, has 
not turned aside to witness the drama of springtime as it was being enacted in 
a neighboring hedgerow! Those painted oval souvenirs, did they not symbolize 
for him his very interest in life? And what red-blooded youth, poring over his 
“cabinet” of birds’ eggs, has not dreamed of a collection which should embrace 
not only the birds of his township or state or country, but the nests and eggs 
of the birds of the entire world? Of all who started down the vista of that golden 
dream, some few only persisted until their hoardings began to take on a faint 
color of value, scientific value. Finally one said, “It cannot be done by one 
alone. It cannot be done in a lifetime, not even by a millionaire. Come on, boys, 
let’s do it together!” Cooperation, then, is to be the keynote of the Museum of 
Comparative Oology. 
But is it an altogether fantastic task, this heaping together of all kinds of 
birds’ eggs? Not a bit of it! Qui hono? To what end, then? To the end that 
we may interpret life. Some day it will appear as comical as it really is, that 
