The Naturalist's Guide in Collecting and Preserving Objects of Natural History. With a Complete Catalogue of the Birds of Eastern Massachusetts

The Naturalist’s Guide in collecting and preserving Objects of Natural History. With a complete Catalogue of the Birds of Eastern Massachusetts. By C. J. MAYNARD. With Illustrations by E. L. Weeks. Boston : Fields, Osgood, & Co. l8mo. pp. 170.

THIS is a compact but sufficiently comprehensive manual of directions for preparing zoölogical specimens, vertebrate and invertebrate, followed by a list of the birds of this vicinity. Both portions of the book have the appearance of being founded on personal experience, which, as Mr. Maynard remarks in his opening sentence, “is a good, and, in fact, the only adequate teacher we can have in learning any art.” Every collector will have his own favorite methods, but the directions here given seem to be sound and sensible, and we have no hesitation in recommending them to the use of the young naturalists, of whom each year brings forward a fresh crop. The passion for “collections,” without very much regard to what is collected, befalls most boys, like measles or whooping-cough ; and when it takes the direction of natural history, is sometimes deprecated by tender-hearted and reasonable people for the amount of unrequited destruction and suffering which it Seems to them to invoke. The laceration of trousers and of cuticle, and the still worse laceration of the finer sensibilities incident to bird-nesting and shooting and the impalement of butterflies, seems to the considerate parent imperfectly compensated by an uncertain amount of fragmentary and undigested information picked up in the process. The merely acquisitive and rapacious propensities seem called into play, rather than the higher faculties. There is some foundation for this view. Even the doings of fullfledged naturalists are not always pleasant to think of. The ravages of which Audubon complacently accuses himself, and some even of Mr. Maynard’s recommendations, must affect the most liberally disposed mind with mixed feelings. “ While visiting a remote region, but little known,” he says, “one should not neglect to shoot numbers of every bird met with, even if they are common species at home,” that is, perhaps, in the next village. “ If a bird is seen that is not fully recognized, it should he shot at once ; for in no other way can it be determined whether it is not a rara avis,” and as such deserving instant destruction. “ While collecting the eggs of the warblers and other small birds, the most experienced oölogist should never neglect to shoot the bird, even if he has to watch for it a long time.” Nevertheless, on the whole, and remembering that, as Emerson says, we must fetch the pump with dirty water if clean cannot be had, these drawbacks and deductions should not blind us to the advantage which there is to every one in having some acquaintance with his four-footed or feathered neighbors, or to the fact that such acquaintance is rarely obtained by any one who has not at some time or other passed through the “ collection ” stage. It would of course be better for our young friends to devote as much zeal to observing the living animal as they do to making a “specimen ” of him ; and the same thing may be said of their teachers, of the learned doctors in science. It is a little disgraceful that we should know so much about the teeth of the fox or the woodchuck, and so little of his biography, − of the use for which these characteristic distinctions exist. But we must take men as they are, and it seems to be the natural course to begin with the outside, the specimens, and afterwards to come to the perception of what it is they are specimens of. Mr. Maynard devotes a good deal of space to directions (and very good ones) for the mounting of birds and mammals, that is, setting up their skins with wires, so as to look lifelike and natural, and for the manufacture of rocks and trees of papier-maché sprinkled over with sand or powdered glass to receive them. He does not say—doubtless feeling that it is not his affair to say it−that, except for public museums, a skin, that is, an unmounted specimen, is in every point of view preferable to a mounted ore. It is easier to prepare, much easier to take care of, and more convenient for study. Mr. Maynard does not feel called upon to suggest this view ; but if it could be adopted, without detriment to the zeal aforesaid, private collections and even public might, by losing something of their cumbrousness, gain in utility and have a better chance of being kept up. Part II. contains valuable notes, which might to advantage be expanded, on the distribution of birds in this region. The absence, in the Eastern States, of natural barriers sufficient to modify distribution makes them an apt field for the study of this problem. In the neighborhood of Boston some species seem, without assignable cause, regularly to frequent or avoid rather narrowly circumscribed regions. Some occur abundantly at irregular intervals, and are rare or unknown at other times. The Rose-breasted Grossbeak, which Mr. Maynard marks as a common summer resident, is, or until lately has been, rare in some of our neighboring towns. The Great Crested Fly-catcher, which he marks as very rare, has been a regular summer visitor in one of these towns for the last thirty years; and the Black-throated Bunting, which he considers to be a very rare visitor, “ a straggler,” was one summer as abundant in a certain range of meadow in Cambridge as the Bobolink. Such instances might be multiplied, and they suggest the thought that concerted observation might reveal some of the conditions which influence distribution, and perhaps let us into some of the open secrets of bird-life.

In a second edition the lettering of the plates might be revised to advantage, particularly that of Plate III., which at present is not quite intelligible. Otherwise, the getup of the book is careful and convenient.