SUGGESTIONS, &c 
§ i. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
The collecting of bird’s eggs for scientific purposes requires far 
more discrimination than the collecting of specimens in almost any 
other branch of Natural History. While the Botanist, and generally 
speaking the Zoologist, at home is satisfied as long as he receives the 
specimens in good condition, with labels attached giving a few con¬ 
cise particulars of when and where they were obtained, it should be 
always borne in mind that to the Oologist such facts, and even the 
specimens themselves, are of very slight value unless accompanied by 
a statement of other circumstances which will carry conviction that 
the species to which the eggs belong has been accurately identified, 
and the specimens subsequently carefully authenticated. Consequently 
precision in the identification of his specimens should be the principal 
object of an egg-collector, to attain which all others must give way. 
There are perhaps few districts in the world, and certainly no regions 
of any extent, whose faunas are so well known that the most rigid 
identification may be dispensed with. Next to identifying his speci¬ 
mens, the most important duty of an egg-collector is to authenticate 
them by marking them in some manner and on some regular system 
as will leave no doubt, as long as they exist, of their having been 
obtained by him, and of the degree of identification to which they 
were subjected. Neatness in the mode of emptying the shells of their 
contents and other similar matters are much to be commended ; they 
render the specimens more fitted for the cabinet. But the main 
points to be attended to, as being those by which science can alone 
be benefited, are identification and authentication. 
§ ii. 
IDENTIFICATION. 
The most satisfactory, and often the simplest, way of identifying 
the species to which a nest of eggs, when found, belongs, is to obtain 
