Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/189

Rh of a bateleur eagle, caged near his front door; in the window was a bleached but historical specimen of a Greenland falcon. His specimens were unlabelled, and he either could not or would not tell us whence they came; few of these old collections ever are labelled with date and locality; the owner prided himself that he knew all about them, and forgot that a day would come when his word would be no longer available. Then he passed, and the value of the collections, many of them invaluable, passed also; friends and relatives try to realise upon the hoarded goods, but the scientist refuses to purchase. All the labour has been in vain; for lack of a little care, a notebook, or a catalogue, the specimens become so much lumber. The house was crammed with natural history objects, but the glass cases were cracked and broken; dust and dirt, moth and mite, had found their way through many crevices; the whole place, the man himself, showed the waste of years. A life and a life work practically wasted!

The objection to stating localities was not always laziness, but was the result of the competitive system; these men dared not reveal where they had found their good specimens, for fear that their associates would also find them and so lessen their fictitious value. It had its value for the species; it has its value to us to-day. One or two instead of a score or more raided the locality; many plants and insects would long since have vanished had their habitat been disclosed. Very many years ago the entomological world was astonished by the discovery of a new moth near Manchester; the finder had not one or two, but many specimens. He refused to disclose the source of supply, and gloated over the envy of his less fortunate companions. Time went on, and drink and consequent poverty induced him to part with two or three specimens, one to be figured in Curtis's "Entomology."