the snow-bird, the vireos, and the wood-warblers, and as a rule it is
the only egg in the nest that issues successfully. Either the eggs of
the rightful owner of the nest are not hatched, or else the young are
overridden and overreached by the parasite and perish prematurely.

Among the worst enemies of our birds are the so-called "collectors,"
men who plunder nests and murder their owners in the name of science.
Not the genuine ornithologist, for no one is more careful of
squandering bird life than he; but the sham ornithologist, the man
whose vanity or affectation happens to take an ornithological turn.
He is seized with an itching for a collection of eggs and birds because
it happens to be the fashion, or because it gives him the air of a man
of science. But in the majority of cases the motive is a mercenary
one; the collector expects to sell these spoils of the groves and
orchards. Robbing the nests and killing birds becomes a business with
him. He goes about it systematically, and becomes expert in
circumventing and slaying our songsters. Every town of any
considerable size is infested with one or more of these bird
highwaymen, and every nest in the country round about that the wretches
can lay hands on is harried. Their professional term for a nest of
eggs is "a clutch," a word that well expresses the work of their
grasping, murderous fingers. They clutch and destroy in the germ the
life and music of the woodlands. Certain of our natural history
journals are mainly organs of communication between these human
weasels. They record their exploits at nest-robbing and bird-slaying
in their columns. One collector tells with gusto how he "worked
his way" through an orchard, ransacking every tree, and leaving, as he
believed, not one nest behind him. He had better not be caught working
his way through my orchard. Another gloats over the number of
Connecticut warblers--a rare bird--he killed in one season in