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 180 TIlE CONDOR Vol. XVI No. 19. Collected by Paul Thorasimsson, on the 15th of June, 1905, at Lake My Vatn, North Iceland (set c 1-2), measures, according to my measure- nents, 2.60xl.80. Nos. 18 and 19 are both very dark eggs, while no. 17 is lighter.' In the case of no. 19 most of the spots are very fine, even minute, with only a few larger ones. In no. 18 they are larger and blacker, those at the greater end be- ing, in fact, great blotches and mostly confluent. In the egg belonging to the same clutch with no. 18, there is a blotch near the butt which measures 20 millimeters by 10 millimeters, or nearly the size of one's thumb-nail. One still nearer the butt is nearly as large; but such mark- ings in the eggs of loons are exceptional, and in any case appear to be formed by several smaller blotches, overlaid by somewhat thinner and very slightly lighter ones. Loons' eggs are very different from any of those of the Alcidae or auks; indeed, in the case of some of the latter, the eggs are pure white, and present no markings of any kind whatever. Moreover, some of the puffins and other species lay but a single egg, although other auks lay tw6, and, as we know, so do the humming-birds. These facts are alluded to simply to illustrate the point that the mmber of eggs laid by a bird of one well-defined group, selected as a single character- istic, is by no means a safe one to go by in taxonomy, in the matter of array- ing that bird, or family of birds, with another group, simply for the reason that some of the latter assemblage may chance to do the same thing. Still, in avian classification, the characters presented on the part of eggs always mean something, and such data is often of use in this connection; but it should never be employed as a single factor more than to be additional evi- dence, with respect to affinities, when associated with what is presented on the part of structure, habits and distribution. As yet we have not the knowledge which will admit of correctly stating why it is that all loons lay two dark-colored, spotted eggs; but there is a reason for their so doing. And were we able to trace the matter back far enough into the past, that reason could be brought to light. For instance, could we bnt know what kind of an egg Hesperornis and its descendants laid, it would great- ly help out. Washington, D.C., October 3, r9r3. FROM FIELD .AND STUDY A Plea for More Lastinl Field Notes.--What happens finally to all the ornitholog- ical fiei'd notes that are made? A few of them are left to state and local institutions and societies, some to close personal friends of the deceased, and by far the greater majority I imagine, are put away with odds and ends in an old trunk until a house- cleaning by some member of the next generation puts them in the ash barrel. Again, how many of these notes are put and kept in concise, connected and decipherable form so that they may some day be of use to others? From what I have myself seen I feel safe in venturing the statement that a good percentage of the average men who are interested in birds, other than those connected with some museum or other institution, wil find that their old notes are scattered through notebooks of different sizes, and some of them, at least, stored with other old papers where they may be forgotten and at best hard to get at. Notes that are worth taking at all are worth keeping in orderly condition and