ORNITHOLOGY 



33i 



and were painted by Roelandt Savery 

 and others, and these paintings fur- 

 nished the basis of Rowland Ward's 

 excellent restoration. Dr. Goode 

 would have been charmed with it, for 

 it was one of the many things he plan- 

 ned to do but did not live to execute. 



Our bird was given by Walter Wi- 

 nans. 



A very large number of bones were 

 recovered from the Mare I marais) aux 

 songcs, Mauritius by E. T. Newton. 



F. A. Lucas. 



place, and the second in being unable 

 to distinguish with certainty the spot 

 selected. One picture is taken from 

 the open door looking outward. The 

 distance was not sufficient to get the 

 fourth nest on the plate, but the edge 

 of the fourth can be seen in the picture 

 taken outside the building. 



Frank C. Pellett. 



Puzzled Robins. 



Atlantic, Iowa. 

 To the Editor : 



We often hear the expression that 

 reason makes mistakes but that instinct 

 is infallible. I send a photograph to 



Eagle's Nest Destroyed by Fire. 

 Word has been received that the big 

 bald eagle's nest at Nokomis, (former- 

 ly Venice) Florida, which has been a 

 landmark in this vicinity for a score 

 of years, has been destroyed by fire. 

 This nest was of unusual dimensions, 

 being twelve feet in height and seven 

 feet in diameter. It was a solid mass 

 of sticks, added to year after year, and 

 was known to have been occupied for 



B ,;. |^^^^^^__ ^^^^^M^H -^^^^^Hk 



33 ' «fi 



THE FOUR NESTS OF ONE PAIR OF PUZZLED ROBINS. 



which I would like to call the attention 

 of those who believe that instinct is not 

 liable to error. A pair of robins started 

 a nest on my study porch, on which 

 there are four spaces just alike between 

 the rafters. The birds did not seem to 

 be able to distinguish among the dif- 

 ferent positions and soon had four nests 

 under construction at one time. As 

 will be seen by the picture, three of 

 them were nearly completed, although 

 eggs were deposited in only one. When 

 the nest was finally completed and one 

 or two eggs had been laid, the birds 

 discovered that there was not sufficient 

 room above the nest to admit of their 

 entrance and exit without damage, and 

 all four were abandoned. It seems that 

 in this case the birds made two mis- 

 takes — one in selecting an unsuitable 



at least twenty consecutive seasons. 

 The nest was sixty feet up in a large, 

 dead longleaf pine, and a fire sweeping 

 through the grove destroyed both the 

 nest and the old tree. 



It may be remembered by our read- 

 ers that this nest was pictured in the 

 September, 1915 issue of The Guide 

 to Nature, with notes on the breeding 

 of the birds here in the winter of the 

 preceeding year.. 



The ordinary skunk squirts its char- 

 acteristic fluid to a distance of from 

 six to ten feet. Occasionally a special- 

 ly muscular individual has a range of 

 fifteen feet. The principle of "safety 

 first" indicates at least twenty feet as 

 a wise interval between the animal and 

 the observer. 



