CORRESPONDENCE AND INFORMATION 



4i 



for girth and symmetry, surpasses all 

 other arboreal growths in the vicinity. 

 In the picture which you took of this 

 ash, the man standing" against the tree 

 is Mr. Charles W. Smith, a lifelong- 

 resident of the town. He relates that 

 when he was a very young man, say, 

 fifty years ago, Mr. Selleck Scofield, who 

 was then well along in his eighties, 

 told him that when he (Mr. Scofield) 

 was a boy, he had bent that ash over 

 to cut it with his jackknife. It was 

 haying time and as the men in the 

 field were short of forks, Mr. Scofield 

 looked about for a branching stick to 

 use as a tedder. The little ash had 

 the desired fork, but after he bent it 

 down, it seemed to be so nice and 

 sturdy a little thing that he let it fly 

 back, trimmed it, and there it stands 

 to-day. 



There is another tree you should 

 have in your collection. This is a mam- 

 moth oak, standing close to the road 

 on the old Woodcock place in Bedford 

 village. Connected with it is an Indian 

 legend of colonial interest. 



Walter P. Terry. 



Observing and Taming Birds. 



New Canaan, Conn. 

 Dear Secretary (of the La Rue Holmes 

 League) : 



You mention that song sparrows 

 are rare winter visitants in your lo- 

 cality. There is a certain swampy 

 thicket, a few square yards in extent, 

 which boiders a pond near my home. 

 During the past two winters I have 

 found a solitary song sparrow there 

 whenever I visited the spot. The small 

 thicket seemed to be his sole home and 

 feeding-place; he seldom or never 

 wandered from it. 



I understand that the vesper sparrow 

 is an occasional winter visitant in 

 southern New Jersey; in Connecticut, 

 however, this species is supposed to be 

 strictly migratory, arriving in April, 

 and departing in October; neverthe- 

 less, I saw and postively identified a 

 vesper sparrow near my home on De- 

 cember 8th last. I have one record for 

 the hermit thrush, January 10, 1910; 

 bluebirds and robins are present at 

 all times. 



During the past December, January 

 and February myrtle warblers have 

 been quite common, but have been ab- 

 sent since February 25th. Besides 

 these summer and migrating birds, we 

 have the usual winter residents — 

 brown creepers, tree sparrows, hairy 

 and downy woodpeckers, flickers, shore 

 larks, starlings, blue jays, meadowlarks, 

 redpolls, goldfinches, juncos, winter 

 wrens, nuthatches, chickadees, etc. 



1 have found the work of bird-tam- 

 ing less difficult than some authors in- 

 timate. Last December I tamed some 

 chickadees and nuthatches within two 

 hours, and for six weeks after that 

 (until I ceased visiting them regularly) 

 they seemed to be quite without fear. 

 They would fly toward me when 1 ap- 

 proached, and eat suet from my hand 

 as long as my supply lasted. On one 

 occasion I had a nuthatch eating on 

 one hand, a chickadee eating on the 

 other, and a second chickadee flutter- 

 ing about my feet, picking up the 

 crumbs. By watching them at such 

 close range I was able to make many 

 interesting observations. 



Thanking you for the blanks, I re- 

 main. 



Yours very truly, 



Harold E. Iones. 



City Park Oasis In A "Desert." 



Stamford, Connecticut. 

 To the Editor : 



I am sending you to-day a few pic- 

 tures taken in Halloween Park in this 

 city. I think that few people know 

 of the beauty hidden away behind the 

 knoll that you see as you ride by in 

 the Shippan trolley car, but it is there. 



The impression left on my mind, 

 when I first rode by the park after it 

 had been filled in, was one of utter 

 desolation, for all I could see from the 

 car window was a fine expanse of sand 

 or rather, I should say, an expanse of 

 fine sand, and gullies banked up by 

 walls of dried mud. But if you will 

 alight at the entrance of the park and 

 walk toward the east for three or four 

 hundred yards, till you reach the other 

 side of the knoll, you will be agreeably 

 surprised by the beaut y which nature, 



