CARE OF A COLLECTION 
21 
Care of a Collection. — The best cases in which to keep a collection 
of birdskins are known as “Cambridge cans.” They are made of tin, 
with covers which fit into grooves lined with rubber tubing, and are 
practically air-tight. The smaller sizes cost from five dollars to seven 
dollars and a half each, and can be obtained of Muller and Wood, of 
New York City. 
A wooden cabinet with tight-fitting drawers and door is less ex- 
pensive, and with ordinary care will preserve specimens for a prac- 
tically indefinite period. The drawers should be thirty inches long by 
sixteen inches in width. For birds the size of a Robin a depth of one 
inch and three-quarters is sufficient, while drawers four inches deep 
will take the largest Hawks or Owls. These drawers will hold about 
thirty birds the size of a Robin, eighty the size of a Chickadee, and 
eight to ten Hawks and Owls. 
Well cleaned and thoroughly poisoned specimens of small birds are 
not likely to be attacked by the moth {Tinea) or beetles ( Dermestes 
and Anthrenus) which so often infest poorly prepared or nonpoisoned 
skins. Naphthaline crystals or camphor gum should be placed in each 
drawer of the cabinet, the door of which should not be left open need- 
lessly. If a specimen falls a victim to insects, the better plan is to 
discard it at once. If, however, it is rare, it may be taken out-of-doors 
and placed in an air-tight box with a few tablespoonfuls of bisulphuret 
of carbon. 
Collecting and Preserving Nests and Eggs. — The following quotation, 
from the late Major Bendire’s Instructions for Collecting, Preparing, 
and Preserving Birds’ Eggs and Nests* may be taken as authoritative: 
“Unless the would-be collector intends to make an especial study of 
oology and has a higher aim than the mere desire to take and accu- 
mulate as large a number of eggs as possible regardless of their proper 
identification, he had better not begin at all, but leave the nests and 
eggs of our birds alone and undisturbed. They have too many enemies 
to contend with, without adding the average egg collector to the num- 
ber. The mere accumulation of specimens is the least important 
object of the true oologist. His principal aim should be to make care- 
ful observations on the habits, call notes, song, the character of the 
food, mode and length of incubation, and the actions of the species 
generally, from the beginning of the mating season to the time the 
young are able to leave the nest. This period comprises the most in- 
teresting and instructive part of the life-history of our birds.” Very 
heartily do I endorse every word of this, and to the concluding sen- 
tence I would add: and there can be no better way to avoid increasing 
our knowledge of a bird’s domestic life than to rob it of its eggs, and 
destroy its home and our own opportunities at the same time. Studied 
from a local standpoint, I confess I can see only two points of interest 
in a bird’s egg — one is what the egg is in, the other is what is in the egg. 
Nevertheless, I can understand the pleasure attending the legiti- 
*Part D. Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 39, 1891, pp. 3-10. 
