Ill 
'ic,X)tc.T7 
are in my collection,both in Calif, and Salvador. It was most in¬ 
teresting getting notes in full detail of all the circumstances 
connected with the collecting of these sets. 
I have had a goodly number of interesting letters from 
my British Columbia friend C. de B. Green,who has been with the 
array in Prance almost ever since the beginning of the war. His 
love for egg collecting is undiminished and he writes that half 
his luggage consists of nests and eggs. On one occasion,while 
under fire,he tried to find a Gold-crest’s nest as he thought it 
would 
y^raake interesting data and was very nearly sent to the guardhouse 
as being out of his head. He has taken a number of my rarest 
sets, such as Clarke’s nutcracker, Peale’s Palcon, etc.,and has 
some interesting things for me from "over there”. How vastly 
interesting they will be,taken under such conditions. 
The past spring gave me a lot of fun with the Calif. 
Creepers,as they were fairly numerous. Every first set that I 
found in good condition for blowing I would take, and then nail 
up a ”decoy” some fifteen or twenty feet away. Without an ex¬ 
ception my false nests were all used, full sets being ready in 
ten days, or two weeks at most. I never take these second seta 
that are put in my "decoys” and you would think that the birds 
had learned this from experience in previous years. These 
second sets are seldom,if ever,smaller than the first ones,and 
sometimes larger. I was strongly tempted to break my rule on a 
beautiful H/S^that the bird had put in one of my "decoys” in 
place of a rather inferior N/5 that I had taken from her some 
ten days before. However,I sighed and let her keep it. 
With best wishes of the season from both my father 
and myself, and hoping that this finds you well, I am. 
Always sincerely yours. 
