The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-23
HOW TO FIND BIRDS NESTS

HOW TO FIND BIRDS NESTS. I was once an enthusiastic collector 1 of birds eggs, and might have been one still, had it not been for single sen tence spoken to me by one of the foremost ornithologists in America, l
 was calling upon him, few years ago. and he was telling me of a visit he had recently made to Pelican Island in 1 Florida. He was describing the nests and I inquired anxiously:
 Did you get any eggs?"
 Eggs" he repeated. T never col lected 8 birds egg in my life.'
 I was profoundly impressed. Here was man who knew more about birds than almost any one else on the Vest ern continent; more than l ever even hoped to know; yet he had never found it necessary to rob the nests of the birds whose lives he had studied so closely. If he. who was making or anthology life-study, did not feel jus tified in making a collection of eggs, surely I had no reasonable excuse for making one. and, as a matter of fact, ] have never collected a single egg from that day to this. Nor do I believe that the average bird-student has any reasonable excuse for taking the eggs of wild birds, unless by good luck he hap pens to find one of the few nests which are still unknown to science. If he has positively made up his mind to devote his lie to the study of oology, that is quite another matter, and I should find no fault if he took hundred thousand eggs provided the results he was striving to attain warranted such wholesale collecting. But the boy or man who does not intend to become a specialist on the subject, had better leave the birds eggs in their nests: otherwise he may simply cause untold misery to some of the gentlest of all creatures, without adding one new fact to the science of ornithology. Birds have so many enemies already that not a few of them are fast disappearing and surely no thinking person who pretends to love them will intentionally join
 the ranks of their sworn foes.
 But bird-nesting for the purpose of studying the home life of birds them selves is in my opinion pursuit to be encouraged, for 1 believe that, the bet ter one becomes acquainted with an animal, it's trials and it's problems, the more respect he will have for it as a rule and tbe more likely he will be to see that it gets fair play at his hands. As a case in point, I will admit that some months ago I should not have had to stretch my conscience entirely out of shape to have shot skunk. But this spring I have made the personal ac-
 quaintance of family of skunks; l
 have seen the mother tenderly nursing and guarding her little ones and to me skunks are no longer objects of hatred or disgust. Several times l have put my hand into the burrow. and stroked the mothers head, and, after persuad ing her that I was harmless, I have even lifted the babies out to examine them. Only yesterday, when she seemed to think I had kept them long enough, she came out looked me in the eyes and took the little ones gently from my hands one by one, and carried them into the nest. After such a mark of confidence it would have been a wealthy man who could have bribed me to in-
 
 But to return to the birds nests.
 Naturally the first thing to do before one can study birds nest is to find it. Before going out with this object in view it is wise to do two or three things. In the first place, get from a standard book or from some well-posted local ornitho- logist, a list of the birds which nest in your vicinity, Then from the same or similar sources of information, find out the date at which these birds usually breed. Find out in addition, the kinds of sites the different birds usually se- lect for their nests and then you will be able to hunt for these nests intelligently May and June are two great months for this work, but some nests may be found at any time between February and September. There are two periods dur ing the home life of most birds when it is comparatively easy to find their nests. One period includes the time during which the nest is built, for then one or both parents make frequent visits to the site for the purpose of carrying building material, and, if a careful watch is kept on any bird with sticks, grass, moss, threads, etc., in it's bill, one is very apt to make a discovery. Only this morning I found a redstarts nest by following the female, whom saw flying into a wood with strip of bark in her bill. I only got the general direction the first time, but by waiting quitely in the shadow of a tree, soon saw her filing through the woods again with some more bark, and this time marked her down" and saw her mak- ing her nest in a maple sapling, about twenty feet from the ground. The other period is during which the young birds