days, which would never do.
Don’t disturb a nest more than is absolutely necessary or you may make the bird desert. And when you go to a nest try to make no tracks, or at least hide them as much as possible before you leave, and see that the nest is as well covered up as it can be; for the next person who comes along may not know his duty towards the birds, and anyhow you don’t want to help him to find your nests.
Always remember that the birds are giving you no end of a lot of fun, and it is only playing the game to help them when you get the chance, and at least to do as little harm as you possibly can.
The Farmer.—Your duty towards the farmer is to give him as little annoyance as possible (and he is easily annoyed).
Don’t let him see you on his land. If you are any good at scouting you should generally be able to manage this; and even if he is a friend you don’t want him to think you are never off his land, or he will soon begin to think you a nuisance.
Don’t disturb his sheep at lambing time.
Don’t leave his gates open and let the stock out into the high road or into the young crops.
Don’t break down his fences. It is just as easy to test the strength of a rail before you put your weight on it as it is to make sure of a branch at the top of a tree. If you should bring one down, try and fix it up again, and always put back any stones you may knock down in climbing a wall. And remember that the best place to climb a gate is as near the hinges as possible.
Don’t walk through standing corn or hay; there is always room for one at a time along the hedge side.
There is a big difference between simple trespassing, for which you can be turned off a man’s land, and trespassing and doing damage, for which you can be prosecuted.
The Keeper.—Your duty towards the game keeper is to be friends if you can; but it will generally be more than you can manage to make even a neutral of him. He is much more likely to class all boys as “vermin,” and act accordingly.
If it is peace, he is the man to tell you how to know the signs of the woods and the ways of the wild things in them; and what he says about the bigger birds is generally true, though he is not always very learned in the smaller ones.
If it is war, you must keep out of his way as much as you can, and take care that if you do meet him he has as little as possible to grumble at.
First of all, don’t let him catch you on his beat. This means more scouting, and rather more difficult. Of course if you see him crossing the fields on his way home to tea you know where you have him for an hour or so, and that is the time for any special place you want to visit. But you will not often know where he is, and if you don’t want him to know where you are, the most important thing is to make no noise, whether with your voice or your movements, or by setting a whole lot of Woodpigeons crashing out of the trees. Then if you stick to the hedges in going across country you will be hidden on one side, and much less conspicuous on the other, than if you boldly parade across the middle of the fields. In a wood you can often hide better by standing quite still under a tree than by making a dash for better cover. A keeper is not unlike the wild creatures he, watches in some ways, and any movement is sure to catch his eye, for that is what he is chiefly on the look-out for.
Secondly, don’t disturb game birds on their nests. You may make them desert, and they will certainly make a tremendous racket, which is what you want to avoid. And don’t take their eggs, for what is just an egg to you now, may mean a sporting shot and a good meal for someone next autumn. If you want specimens of their eggs, you have only to visit a few nests just after hatching time and you are sure to find an addled egg or two, which are just as good when blown, even if the inside does smell a little high.
Finally, don’t leave any traces that you can help, or meddle with traps or other appliances, or you are more than likely to get a warm reception when you go again.
Once more simple trespass is one thing and trespass in pursuit of game another which may get you into several different kinds of trouble, from heavy fines to hard labour.
Yourself.—Your duty towards yourself is something like this. Don’t let well-meaning but ignorant people give you eggs, and don’t above all things buy them from the “naturalists’” shops—if you do you are encouraging wholesale robbery of your friends the birds, for that is how they get their eggs. (There is no harm in buying a few fancy specimens of Gillemots, etc., from the professional “dimmers” who get eggs for the market and it’s much better than breaking your neck.) Otherwise don’t have an egg in your collection unless you have found, or at any rate seen the nest yourself. Every egg in your collection should remind you of the nest it came from, the bird that laid it, the search for it, the finding of it, and all sorts of pleasant things. Eggs that don’t remind you of anything at all are not a collection; you might just as well have Seebohm’s book with the beautiful coloured plates, or an album of stamps given you by your big brother when he got tired of it. Quite nice things to have, both of them, but not to be compared with a collection of eggs that you have found for yourself.
Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get all the eggs there are. The season may be short, but there are plenty more coming, and it is good to have something to look forward to. The finest thing in the whole business is finding a new nest that you haven’t found before, and the harder it is to find, and the longer you have to wait for it, the greater the pleasure when it does come. So don’t be too ready to let kind people show you nests, and do everything except climb the tree for you (I have known them even do that); for you never get the same fun out of it as when you do it all yourself.
One more don’t, and that is, don’t take on trust everything you read in this book or any other. It’s probably true, but the oldest of us has not done learning about birds yet, and there’s no harm and lots of good in seeing for yourself. Your long-tailed tit may have a different way of getting into her nest from mine, and in any case it’s a sight worth seeing. Again the way nests are built and what they are made of are things you should be careful to notice; and anything you have found out for yourself is always better than what you get from a book. So take this book as meant to give you an idea of what to look out for, and not as the last word on the subject.
$ 7. THE EGG COLLECTION.
Suppose you have taken all my advice, found lots of eggs and brought them home safely. The next thing is to blow them, and a little more advice will perhaps save you some breakages and disappointments. When you start to blow an egg, hold it by the ends between your finger and thumb, for it is stronger that way, and do the whole business over water, so that if you drop it there’s no harm done. Get a good drill, and use it on eggs that don’t matter much till you are pretty sure of yourself. Bore the hole where the egg will naturally balance on it, and opposite to any markings that you particularly want to show. Don’t try to blow eggs with too small a hole, and don’t shove the point of the blowpipe right inside. If yon keep it just outside, the air goes in just as well and the contents come out much better, and you will never burst the egg. Having emptied the egg, squirt in some water, shake it up and blow it out again; and keep on doing this till it comes out as clean as it went in. Wipe the outside lightly with a wet handkerchief, just to remove the dirt but none of the markings, and put it hole-downwards on a piece of blotting-paper to drain. If a yellow stain appears, or the egg tries to stick to the paper, wash it out again.
Now your egg will keep for ever (?), and if you keep a note-book, you can number each nest as you enter it, and put
