Show 1 FORTUNE IN BIRDS EGGS m J i S Parisian S Dealer lnJKaire Eggs E Made a Fortune < San Francisco Call A sparrows egg seems of little or no value and yet therg Is a man in Paris who ca transform I into a prize really worth having Indeed this ingenious gentleman makes a very handsome income in-come through his skill in coloring birds eggs As to the legitimacy of his business busi-ness the reader can judge for himself A few years ago this wideawake Parisia was an assistant in a provincial provin-cial museum of natural history and while there he learned and saw a great deal which has since been o much use to him So much indeed did he learn that when he lost his position he went to Paris and determined to start in business bus-iness for himself His apprenticeship at the museum had shown him the value o birds eggs and he promptly decided to make a living by dealing in rare eggs True he hud only a very small collection of eggs with which to start business but this was a trifling obstacle to a man of his versatile gG nlijs He knew that there were many collectors in various countries who were willing to pay fancy prices for eggs and he resolved to supply their demands de-mands no matter how extravagant they night be Of course not having many rare eggs and lacking the necessary facilities for procuring them he could not supply them unless he manufactured them and this he did For example If a collector wrote to him for a penguins eg he would make out of gypsum a shell exactly act resembling that of a penguins egg and he would forward it to his customer cus-tomer who would never dream that a penguin had not laid it As a rule however how-ever he uses a shell of semis common eeg his sole care being to see that It corresponds in size with the desired egg The eggs of the common flycatcher fly-catcher are very cheap and by coloring thorn properfly they can be made to resemble re-semble much costlier eggs Again a ducks egg costs very little and yet our ingenious French gentleman could easily easi-ly transform It Into an egg worth from 40 to 60 francs Pigeons eggs are also very useful for a similar purpose since purose snce the are exactly the same size of many very rare eggs Any one with a knowledge knowl-edge of chemistry could change thcwi so that the pigeons themselves would not recognize them Almost every collector of birds eggs desires to have one or two finely marked nightingales eggs and Is will ing to pay a high price for them The Parisian dealer was well aware of this weakness and larks being more abundant abun-dant than nightingales he found no difficulty in getting larks eggs and coloring col-oring them S that they were exactly like the genuine article as deposited In remote places by the timorous nightingale nightin-gale I can be seen that this is a very profitable pro-fitable business and a little consideration considera-tion will show that there is not much risk of detection True the tricky methods of this Parisian dealer have been brought to light but the discovery was apparently made more by chance than by any suspicion on the part ot his customers that they were being swindled out of their money The average collector no matter whether he has a passion for autographs auto-graphs postage stamps coins or birds eggs is inclined to be gullible and this seems to be especially the case with collectors of eggs They know that certain cer-tain birds lay eggs of a certain size and color and i they can get eggs that seem to be fanltless In these respects they are satisfied The thought that I the coloring may not always be natural I does not se sn to enter their heads At I any rate such has been the experience of this Parisian dealer He has forwarded I for-warded specimens of his skill to collectors collect-ors In all countries and it does not appear ap-pear that he was a fraud Hereafter collectors will probably be more cautious I cau-tious about buying eggs especially from i fcreijjn dealers |