PREFACE. 
A few months since, at the request of Professor Spencer F. Baird, 
Assistant-Secretary to the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, I 
wrote the following ‘ Suggestions ’ for circulation among its cor¬ 
respondents, and accordingly upwards of three thousand copies of 
them have been so distributed in the United States. I have thought 
that a republication of the pamphlet in England, with some slight 
alterations, would be a matter of convenience to British Oologists, 
many of whom, I believe, have felt the hitherto-existing want of 
a concise set of directions on the subject of egg-collecting, for trans¬ 
mission to their friends at home or abroad. 
I have had the less hesitation in offering these ‘ Suggestions ’ to 
the Ornithological public, because I know that the principle of 
taking much greater care than is ordinarily done with respect to 
the proper identification and authentication of eggs, on which 
principle I have endeavoured most to to dwell, is that which was 
so thoroughly and so successfully maintained by my late friend 
Mr. John Wolley. To his example, indeed, I would chiefly 
attribute whatever merit might be found in these pages, though 
several hints which I cannot but consider valuable have been kindly 
supplied to me from other sources. I only trust that the subject 
has not suffered from its treatment at my hands, for I am fully 
convinced that the study of Natural History will be much benefited 
by an extended knowledge of Oology. But that it may be so bene¬ 
fited it is of the utmost importance that our knowledge of Oology 
should rest on a firm and truthful basis, and this end can only be 
attained by unremitting caution and scrupulousness on the part of 
egg-collectors. 
Elveden, Thetford, 
July II, I860. 
