MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 139 
“Bird life was at high-tide in Shaw’s Garden in June, 
and a forenoon in the first half of the month was a good 
time for exploring in the North American tract. Incident- 
ally, it afforded an opportunity for some observations a little 
out of the usual lines. 
_ “It was a showery morning of summer and seemed just 
right for the quest that led us along the little stream and 
around the marshy brink that borders the straggling cat- 
tails. We were seeking an elusive bird—so elusive, indeed, 
that we found nothing that indicated that he might be found 
within these grounds. In May, 1914, a woodcock was flushed 
in the rushes near the arboretum. ‘This, it seems, was the 
first record of this fine game bird in the Garden; but it was 
the opinion of those familiar with his habits that he might 
do well to bring his mate to the shelter of the bulrushes where 
they would be protected against all hunters, save those who 
hunt with cameras, or with empty hands. One of these birds 
was seen in the North American tract on May 8th; an- 
other, or the same one, on the 9th. We were seeking his 
lurking place, for a good picture of these furtive denizens 
of the marshes, with the female, perchance, sitting on her 
= nest would add much to the bird lore of the 
arden, 
“In the midst of our search we were caught in a shower 
that caused us to seek shelter under the dense foliage of a 
red-fruited thorn—a circumstance that turned ill luck into 
a lucky find; for in the wet grass, fresh and dainty as a 
precious pearl, was the unbroken egg of the yellow warbler, 
the well-known summer yellow bird. Parting the tall grass, 
we found an egg of the cowbird, a much larger bird, and 
One whose ways are past finding out. We went through the 
grass very carefully and soon we found another of the little 
warbler’s eggs and remnants of two others. We turned our 
attention to the thorny branches above our heads, and_at 
first saw only leaves, branches, and thorns; then we espied 
the nest from whose fibre cup the eggs had evidently fallen 
during a recent storm. It was eight or ten feet from the 
und—high up for a nest of this kind; but in return for 
the privileges of the Garden, with its wealth of flora and 
fauna, surely we should undertake to put the eggs in the 
nest and get a picture of the little home that had been 
broken up—another one of the many tragedies in which the 
nests and their builders are the hapless victims. 
_““We got it—just how would be tedious to relate—a good 
Picture of the nest and the three eggs (see Plate 26). The 
yellow warbler is the little artist that sometimes thwarts 
the wary cowbird by abandoning her first clutch of eggs and — 
