Oological Kleptomania
From The Guardian, an article on bird egg thievery:
When the Operation Easter detectives opened the door of the second bedroom in an ordinary house in Cleethorpes last month, they suspected they would find a shoebox or two of wild birds’ eggs. Officers did not imagine they would discover 20 polystyrene fish crates, several biscuit tins and a suitcase, containing a collection of 7,707 eggs. Nestling between layers of cotton wool were the dainty speckled pale green and blue of blackcaps, corn buntings and yellowhammers, just like Cadbury’s mini-eggs; the larger, blotched chestnut red of the osprey; goshawk eggs the colour of the moon. Each aquisition was meticulously recorded in notebooks; each egg painstakingly labelled in spidery black ink and its insides blown out through a tiny hole drilled in its side. For the collector, these dead things had clearly been a life’s work.
[Acknowledgments to Bibliotheca]
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