Oxley Grabham

“ Perfection is not to be attained in this vale of tears, but still we can approach closely to it, and there is a very great satisfaction in preserving and mounting one's own specimens, when a very great deal more can be learned about them than could otherwise be done, for one is led almost unconsciously to study their various natural attitudes, &c, and the various little details that go so much to enhance the value and beauty of a specimen. ”

“ There is nothing done without hard work, but in this, as in everything else, if a man means to succeed, he will. There is nothing like beginning early, for a boy does not take it so much to heart as one of maturer years, when, after having spent hours over elaborating a specimen, bird or animal, and having completed it to his entire satisfaction, a kind friend on being shown it remorselessly picks it to pieces from head to tail, metaphorically speaking, till it literally hasn't a leg to stand on ”

“ How often does one see birds placed in impossible positions, legs and beak painted the wrong colour, the tint of the iris completely ignored, fearful and wonderful productions called rockwork covered with all sorts of impossible leaves and plants and bits of variously coloured glass, birds in winter plumage cased amidst summer surroundings, and vice versâ, and even the breasts of sea-birds whitewashed! ”

“ It is not the ornithologist who takes one clutch for scientific purposes who does the harm, but the professional collector who decimates whole colonies time after time. I frankly own that I am indebted for a great deal of my knowledge of the various nesting-places, resorts, and habits of some of our rarest birds to men who, unfortunately, are sometimes tempted by the ridiculously high prices paid by collectors to shoot these birds in the breeding-season, for the sake of their plumage ”

“ But I have found Swifts' nests still containing fresh buttercups, with no Sparrows near, so that the Swifts must have taken them there themselves, though I never saw, or met with anyone who had seen them doing so. With all due deference to so excellent an authority as Mr. Howard Saunders, I must demur to his statement that when three eggs are found in a Swift's nest they are probably the produce of two females. ”

“ At the present day when natural history is becoming so popular, when there are numerous small and great societies, each of which has its periodical meetings for the exhibition of specimens, &c, it is a very great boon to the members thereof to know how to mount the various objects in which they are interested in a proper permanent and scientific manner, and so far as I am aware there is no periodical or magazine which regularly opens its pages for the discussion of matter of this kind. ”

“ Then with regard to the professional taxidermist, of course it is only right that as he has his living to make by the business he should be chary of gratuitously imparting his skill and knowledge to others; but the day has gone by when the knowledge of these things was held only by a few, and every first-class professional man is always ready and willing to give instruction for a reasonable quid pro quo. ”

“ While the Great Crested Grebe is, if anything, on the increase, the Little Grebe, in my experience, is slightly diminishing in numbers; there are plenty in the winter, but few in the breeding-season, and they do not breed on the big sheets of water, as the large Pike play havoc with them. ”

“ Woodcock are increasing yearly, and I know of a wood where over twenty pairs have bred this year, but the young are off long before the shooting season. The same increase I have noted in the breeding of Snipe and Redshank. I know of many colonies of the latter, one numbering nearly twenty pairs of birds, and so far from the nests always being placed in a tuft of grass, with the blades most carefully concealing the eggs, as we are told in the books, I have frequently found them on the open moor amidst the short ling, without any attempt at concealment ”

“ Therefore I venture to hope that, as the pages of the 'Zoologist' have been so courteously opened to us for the discussion and interchange of ideas and methods in connection with the preservation of the various members of the animal world in its broadest sense, there will be no lack of contributors to the matter in hand. In this, as in most things, an ounce of practice is worth a pound of theory; and to a beginner I would say, have a few lessons from a careful first-class man, and you will learn more than by reading the best book on the subject in existence. ”

“ I found them so shy that they keep high up in the air, leaving their eggs to the heat of the sun and sand during the daytime, and only returning to them at dusk, when their enemies have departed. It is really iniquitous that our last remaining colony in the county of these pretty little birds should be so harried, and strong measures ought to be taken at once to ensure their breeding in peace. Was very glad to find a Shelduck sitting hard in a Rabbit-burrow on the sand-hills. Great numbers of Corn-Buntings about.
30th.—Metcalfe got a splendid photograph of a Golden Plover on her nest. ”

“ Nor is it only with Vertebrate Zoology that Taxidermy is concerned; there is the setting of insects and their larvæ; the preserving of shells, starfish, crabs, et hoc genus omne; the use of spirit for many of the lower forms of life; and many more objects of the animal world and methods of preserving them, all of which are included in the comprehensive title of Taxidermy. ”

“ So that, however much one may deprecate and deplore the destruction of our favourites, the most that can be done is to see that this destruction is not wholesale. I have often procured immunity for the remainder by a little judicious expenditure of the current coin of the realm. These men rely on one's honour "not to give them away," so that one is compelled as it were to a certain extent to "bow oneself down in the house of Rimmon." ”

“ The Lapwing, despite the netting, egging, and shooting that it has to contend with, holds its own well in most places: this I attribute to their wonderful adaptability to circumstances. I find their nests equally on the highest fells, in the marshy plains, on the moorlands, and amidst enclosed ground, and no matter how their eggs are taken, in a very short time they are laying again. ”

“ They are most prolific little birds, and I have known thirty eggs taken from one pair. I very much deprecate this sort of thing, but there are times when in pursuit of knowledge and experience, especially if one has to rely upon the good offices and information originally imparted by another, when all one can do is to sit tight. I may say that I see no harm in taking a clutch of eggs whatever, but after that I believe in allowing the birds to lay again, which they always do, and rear their young in safety. ”

“ Surely in such cases as these no one can find fault with the wish to preserve and save from decay any species of the animal world in the nearest approach to its original form and beauty, for when so preserved they are a lifelong delight to their owner and to others of a kindred spirit. ”

“ Quot homines tot sententiæ, and so with Taxidermy: one man opens his birds up the breast, another under the wing, and another down the back; one uses soft stuffing entirely, another a hard body exactly the size of the one he has removed from the skin, and another uses a combination of the two, and as in the hands of a past master each method is capable of producing excellent results, everyone must choose for himself. ”

“ The Grasshopper Warbler has been common. Most people consider it rare, but it is a very peculiar little bird and wants a good deal of knowing. After a spell of cold weather they will sometimes leave the district entirely, or, as they did in one locality this year, remain there but keep perfect silence. There is a good deal of art in finding their nests; my tutor therein, a past master at the game, has found more Grasshopper Warblers' nests than any one else that I ever heard of. ”

“ There are several excellent works on the art nowadays, both English and American. When I began as a boy to skin and mount specimens there were very few, and they generally contained a great deal that was new and a great deal that was true ”

“ I have found this to occur so often, and in isolated nests, that unless for the sake of argument one supposes the Swift to regularly lay in each other's nests, the evidence, to my mind, is strongly in favour of the hen bird by no means infrequently laying three eggs.
Kingfishers are certainly not so rare as many people suppose, but they are often unobserved. ”

“ Few dwellers in the country have access to a well-stocked museum containing all the types and varieties of whatever branch of zoology they happen to be specially interested in, and therefore they either preserve their own specimens, or get a professional to do it for them. ”

“ This colony, almost our last in the county, is, I am glad to say, holding its own, thanks to the protection afforded by the owner of the estate. It used to be ruthlessly harried, the eggs taken regularly, and it is a wonder that it has survived. The Wild Birds Protection Act is very often a mere farce, and were it not that private enterprise frequently steps in, it would be a complete failure. Moore got a photo of a Redshank on her nest. The camera was most carefully covered up, and he was working with a hundred yards of fishing-line tied to the trigger, and hiding behind a clump of gorse ”

“ Several pairs breed in this wood, and sit so close that if one wants to move them they have to be poked off the nest with a stick. They harmonize so beautifully with the surrounding dead leaves and grass that they are most difficult to detect. One was a much more golden-coloured bird than the other.
6th.—Moore and I found several Redshanks' nests, and eight Snipes'. Working with sixty feet of pneumatic tubing, Moore got a beautiful photograph of a Snipe on her nest. ”

“ To do so embraces a very wide range, and a variety of subjects. One man collects the eggs, another preserves the whole or part of the skeleton of a bird, another keeps the skins for reference and comparison, and the fourth mounts his birds in natural attitudes. ”

“ Also Moore got a very pretty photo of a Pheasant on her nest, using a long-focus lens. Saw a pair of Tufted Ducks, but had no time to look for the nest.
23rd.—Went down into Holderness for a night to enquire into the ruthless destruction that has been going on amongst our last remaining colony of Lesser Terns. While the watcher was on, appointed by the County Council, the birds increased in number; but now the trippers, who come over by steamer from Grimsby, work sad havoc amongst them. One man alone took thirty-eight eggs back with him. ”

“ Most professionals pin their faith on the deadly ones; one man that I knew had his finger-nails eaten away, suffered from salivation, and the usual concomitants of mercurial poisoning, from using corrosive sublimate with the greatest carelessness ”

“ They are most difficult birds to photograph on the nest.
10th.—Metcalfe got three lovely photographs of a Common Sandpiper on her nest, in three different positions.
12th.—Went with Moore to photograph the nest and eggs of the Great Crested Grebe. I am glad to say these birds have increased considerably. If only we had had another ten feet of pneumatic tubing we should have got the old bird on the nest. We had the keeper up a tree ready to whistle to us when she settled, and she came close up several times ”

“ Would have given much to have been able to photograph them, but the light was gone for this purpose.
August.
August was a very hot month. Grouse have done well on nearly all the Yorkshire moors, and the young birds are fine and strong on the wing. An Osprey was shot on the 29th near Filey. Two young Dotterels at Easington, Holderness, on the 22nd. ”

“ These varieties of the Weasel are very scarce; this is only the second that I have seen. Mr. Allen, the well-known York taxidermist, showed me a young Rat, which cannot have been more than six weeks old, in which the upper incisors had either been broken completely away, or had never been ”