first to find the bird's nest
(almost an impossible quest for a born Duffer), and to blow the eggs,
which, let me tell you, needs nicety of handling. I did once find
a thrush's nest, and tried blowing an egg, but it was not wholly a
success, and the egg (the contents of which I accidentally absorbed)
was not wholly fresh. Then it is awkward when you are at the top of
a tall tree, with an egg in your mouth, for safety, if the other boys
make you laugh, as you try to come down. It is the egg which,--but
enough! Everyone who has been in that position will understand what is
meant. It is not difficult to collect shells on the seashore, but it
is extremely difficult to find out what shells they are, after you
have collected them.

[Illustration: "And, in shooting at the cats with a crossbow, I had
the misfortune to break several windows."]

Conchology is no child's play. As to collecting marine animals for an
aquarium, the trouble begins when you forget your acquisitions, and
carry them about for some time in the pockets of your jacket. That
jacket is apt to be dusted by the bigger boys, who also interfere
with your affections for toads, lizards, snakes and other live stock
dear to youth. The common ambition of boyhood is to be a great
rabbit-grower, but, somehow, my rabbits did not thrive. The cats
got at them, and, in shooting at the cats with a crossbow, I had the
misfortune to break several windows, and riddle a conservatory.

The chief objects of my later ambition have been rare old books, gems,
engravings, china, and so forth. All these things, if they are to be
collected, demand that you shall have your wits about you; and the
peculiarity of the Duffer is that his wits are always wool-gathering.
A nice collection of wool they must have stored up somewhere. As to
books, one invariably begins by collecting the wrong things. In novels
and essays you read of "priceless Elzevirs," and "Aldines worth their
weight in gold." Fired with hope, you hang about all the stalls, where
you find myriads of Elzevirs, dumpy, dirty little tomes, in small
illegible type, and legions of Aldines, books quite as dirty, if not
so dumpy, and equally illegible, for they are printed in italics. You
think you are in luck, invest largely, and begin to give yourself the
airs of an amateur and a discoverer. Then comes somebody who knows
about the matter in hand, and who tells you, with all the savage joy
of a collector, that nobody wants any Elze