I 
May, 1882.] 
Thus passed from this life on the 11th 
day of February, 1882, one more useful 
member of our fraternity, whose exceeding 
kindness to all, whose scrupulous honesty, 
and trusting confidence in the integrity of 
his fellow men, closely approximated a fault. 
Mr. Fowler was interred at the Fort 
Hill cemetery at Auburn, N. Y., on the 19th 
day of Feb., 1882.— S. W. tfe iS. F. R. 
Hints to Collectors. 
Why do you collect eggs ? Do you live 
in the heart of one of our great cities, 
with few chances afield, and collect through 
the mails by purchase and exchange ? Do 
you heap eggs together as curiosities or 
ornaments to show to friends, or to ecpial 
or eclipse the collections of A and B “? If 
you are influenced by these motives, or sit¬ 
uated as above indicated, stop where you 
are! Trouble the birds no longer and 
tiu-n your attention to bric-a-brac. You 
are on a lower plane than the crows, 
grackles and jays who destroy eggs through 
inherited instinct and appetite. But if you 
take the field yourself, in search of ruddy 
health, with a passionate love for your 
pursuit, with no love of notoriety, and with 
out ever a thought of rivalry, then we may 
not condemn you. Furthermore, if you 
hope by comparison of sets and by obser¬ 
vations on obscure breeding habits to add 
a few grains of information to our humble 
science, go on, yours is no unholy work. 
Not dismayed by the portents of De 
Voe or Vennor, the collector of eggs relies 
on an almanac of his own. In this chron¬ 
ology the breeding of our local Rapacise 
is thus forecast: From Feb. 17 to March 
20, Great Horned Owl; March 17 to April 
10, Barred Owl; March 28 to April 20, Red¬ 
tailed Hawk; April 3 to May 10. Red¬ 
shouldered Hawk; April 1.5, Mottled Owl; 
April 20 to May 15, Broad-winged Hawk ; 
May 10 to June 15, Marsh, Sharp-shinned 
and Fish Hawks. To show how near we 
may come to fixing an exact date for the 
breeding of certain species, let me give the 
117 
record of my sets of Barred Owl for five 
successive seasons: 1877, March 29; 
1878, March 29; 1879, March 29; 1880, 
March 27 ; 1881, April 1. 
Common enough and of no value to ex¬ 
change, we leave many sets of Blue Jay’s 
eggs in the field. Take them all in, brother 
collectors. A series of .lay’s eggs shows 
surjii’ising contrasts, and admits of 
some pleasing changes, and from twenty 
sets it woidd be hard to pick the typical 
one. Every year I leave luitouched many 
crow’s nests for the ajipreciable service ren¬ 
dered the farmer by this species. But we 
may thank the noisy crowd of jays for 
nothing ! Will some closer observer, with 
no animus against him, tell me any good 
of the Blue Jay, and name any noxious in¬ 
sect with which he varies his diet of eggs 
and nuts? For two seasons he has de¬ 
stroyed some of my chitches of Blue Y'el- 
low-backed Warblers, besides less rare sets. 
I here indict him as a scold and nuisance. 
The Red Scpiirrel is anotlier inveterate 
destroyer of bird’s eggs, against whom we 
must make common cause. Before the 
new leaves hide their movements, I often 
see them going into the bird-boxes, and 
Bluebird and Woodpecker holes in the 
great elms on Broadway, on the qui vive 
for eggs, and it is well thus early to sound 
the note of alarm. Here again I have a 
jjersonal axe to grind in the loss through 
him last season of clutches of Yellow- 
throated Vireo and Great-crested Fly¬ 
catcher. Shoot him on sight, my friends. 
The other fur beai’ing animals which are 
enemies to breeding birds, such as the 
skunk, ’coon, mink, fox. grey-squirrel, etc., 
are diligently hunted for their pelts. But 
the mischievous chicaree with his useless 
red jacket and morsel of flesh is consid¬ 
ered beneath the notice of hunters and 
trappers. From many visits to nests of 
unfledged hawks I find that our Buteos 
render us inestimable servi<!e in keeping 
down the number of these rodents. 
The last week in February, Puiqile 
AND UOLOGIST. 
