Thomas Dearborn Burleigh, born 119 years ago today, spent his war months near Pontonx, in southwestern Aquitaine. Already he was “what might have been called a compulsive collector,” but, as he recalled in 1919 on his return to Pittsburgh,
owing to working six days a week and drilling the seventh, ornithology was temporarily neglected.
Eventually, though, Burleigh found time to start robbing the nests of the local birds: a barn swallow clutch here, a green woodpecker nest there, even two nightjar eggs in June 1918, taken from “a slashing in the woods.”
Eggs, it seemed, were easy enough to come by. But the collecting was
the least of my difficulties for there still remained the necessity of blowing them and making good specimens of them. I pondered long over this matter and in the end succeeded beyond my modest expectations.
Burleigh’s pipe stem served him well as a blow pipe. And to make the hole? He found that he could use
a hat pin as a drill, concerning which no personal questions will be answered.
Parley-voo?
