322 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



"Widespread reports in a recent inves- 

 tigation by the jMassachusetts State Or- 

 nithologist indicate that the snipe in the 

 past forty years has decreased by more 

 than fifty per cent throughout most of its 

 former ranges. Records of its breeding 

 in Massachusetts and the neighboring 

 states are now rare, though formerly not 

 uncommon in many localities. Its four 

 eggs, pointed and mottled gray, are 

 placed in a depression in the ground near 

 the border of a pond or a stream." 



A Nest of the Wild Dove. 



BY DR. R. MENGER, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. 



Prairie birds of various types usually 

 build their nests on a definite and typical 

 plan. Occasionally, however, influenced 



A SNUGLY LOCATED A'EST OF 

 WILD DO\'E. 



THE TEXAS 



by environment and other circumstances, 

 they alter their methods, but still if possi- 

 ble use the ordiary building material. 



The Texas wild dove occasionally 

 erects its fragile nest in an extraordinary 

 way. It sometimes uses the abandoned 

 nest of another bird, occasionally select- 

 ing in the West Texas prairie plains, in 

 brushy regions, the old abandoned nest of 

 a mocking bird ; or it builds directly on 

 the ground : or, as seen in the accom- 

 panying photograph, on or inside of the 

 spinous leaves of the Opuntia cactus. 



The illustration, taken on the plains by 

 the writer, shows a wild dove's nest with 

 its typical two white eggs, snugly located, 

 perfectly secluded and protected in a 

 quadrangular space of the blooming cac- 

 tus leaves. The season was the end of 

 July, the main breeding time of our wild 

 (love. The surrounding mesquite trees 

 harbored scores of the breeding birds and 

 their nests. This one was built directly 

 on a dry cactus leaf, surrounded by num- 

 bers of others in full bloom, some of 

 golden yellow, and others, in the rear, in- 

 tensely red, and alive with insects that 

 were feeding on them. 



As a rule the Texas wild dove builds 

 on a branch of the mesquite tree, gen- 

 erally using a few dry grass helms. The 

 main breeding season is from the middle 

 of May to October. Some are sparingly 

 found in October and November. In the 

 fields and pastures at sunset, the birds 

 gather in large numbers to fly to their 

 favorite roosting places among the mes- 

 quites and the oaks. They are somewhat 

 smaller than the beautiful, white-winged. 

 Mexican, migratory pigeons, which are 

 not protected by the game laws, as they 

 are exceedingly greedv and injure the 

 grain fields considerably more than the 

 common wild dove, which the Texas 

 game law protects from March to Sep- 

 tember. 



Migration Notes of 1915. 



BY ANNE E. PERKINS, M. D., COLLINS, N. Y. 



One of the most delightful occur- 

 rences in the bird life of this vicinity 

 the past season was the appearance, on 

 April i8th, of a pair of cardinal gros- 

 beaks in a swampy tangle on the Cat- 

 taraugus Indian Reservation. These 

 birds were repeatedly seen and heard 

 by several of the Audubon Society 

 members, and were there as late as the 

 middle of October. It is believed that 

 they nested, as they were always in 

 the same vicinity and acted very sus- 

 picious of observers. I had seen a 

 female not far from this place two 

 years before, and others have reported 

 the male cardinal near Gowanda, two 

 miles away, but it has never been 

 proven that it nested in this vicinitv. 



On April 4th a flock of two hundred 

 cedar waxwings were seen in a large 

 tulip tree, and all faced the same way. 

 The}- gathered everv afternoon at 5:15 

 and remained there in the same tree for 

 a half-hour, then retired to the swamp. 



