Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/201

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168
Summer.

few nests and eggs for your cabinet. There are clauses in the game laws of most, if not all, of the States, which grant exceptional privileges to collectors for scientific purposes.

Eggs should be "blown," or emptied of their contents, as soon as collected, the empty shells being much less liable to break than the unblown egg. To blow eggs you should have an egg-drill and blow-pipe, but if such instruments are out of your reach a pin will answer for a drill and your lips for the blow-pipe. Make a very small hole in each end of the egg, and taking it gently between the thumb and forefinger, place one hole to the lips; then blow, not too hard, but steadily, until the contents come out of the hole at the other end.

The use of the blow-pipe and drill not only simplifies the operation and lessens the chances of breaking the eggs, but it also makes much neater specimens. Hold the egg firmly, but gently, with its ends between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand. Apply the point of the drill to the middle of one side, and, by imparting a twirling motion to the instrument, drill a hole in the egg-shell, filing away the shell gradually until the opening is large enough to admit the end of the blow-pipe, which should fit in the hole loosely, so that when the egg is "blown" the contents of the shell may escape around the end of the pipe. Hold the egg in the left hand, with the hole downward; insert the small end of the blow-pipe into the hole just drilled. It is often a good plan to force water into the shell through the blow-pipe, and after all the contents have been ejected to thoroughly rinse out the shell.

The drying is an important part of the proceeding; for this purpose the egg is usually placed in sand, bran or meal. Some authorities claim that this is wrong, as the substances are apt to cake around the hole, where they become damp from the moisture absorbed. I have often found it difficult to remove the caked meal without injuring the shell. A recent writer

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