The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 25, June 19, 2005, Article 20

OTHER HOBBIES: EGG COLLECTING

We sometimes discuss other hobbies, although mainly for
the fun of discovering hobbies that make numismatics look
downright normal in the eyes of our disapproving spouses.
On June 14th the Wall Street Journal published an article
about egg collecting. Not the jewel-encrusted Faberge
kind, the baby bird kind.

"When his father died in 1972, Pat More inherited an
unusual legacy: the family's collection of more than 10,000
birds' eggs dating back to the late 1800s.

Mr. More's grandfather, Robert L. More, was 14 years
old when he picked up his first egg in 1888 from the nest
of a black vulture on the family farm. He later displayed
his collection above the family's service station, and the e
exhibit drew visitors from around the world. Pat More
closed this private museum to the public 20 years ago,
but he still feels obligated to care for it.

"It's a burden that I have accepted," says Mr. More,
who is 60 years old.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, bird lovers didn't just
watch birds -- they took their eggs. Devotees known
as oologists prowled the prairies, climbed trees and
dangled off cliffs to snatch eggs from nests. They drained
the eggs' contents through tiny holes in order to preserve
the shells intact, and then traded and sold the eggs like
baseball cards.

"It seems terribly politically incorrect now, but back
then it was perfectly OK," says Carrol Henderson, a
wildlife biologist for Minnesota's Department of Natural
Resources."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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