46 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Twenty years ago the wild pigeons were quite plentiful in the 

 fall of the year in this part of our State, but each fall they came 

 in decreasing numbers, and for the last four or five years I have 

 not seen a single bird. 



There is no sweeter songster than the shy hermit thrush, and 

 I am much pleased in believing that his numbers are increasing. 

 In former years they were not often heard; now, as our spring 

 afternoons decline into twilight, his charming notes come to us 

 from almost every suitable point. 



For the first eight or ten years of my residence in Au Sable 

 Forks I did not see a turtle dove, and now I see them nearly every 

 summer. 



Our American eagle is occasionally seen in the Adirondacks, and 

 some years ago a large female golden eagle was caught in a steel 

 trap near my home and came into my possession, where she occu- 

 pied a slatted hencoop, and whenever curiosity led a hen to poke 

 her bill through the slats her head was taken off very quickly. I 

 was afraid that if I kept the eagle I would turn vivisectionist or 

 become too cruel for a hunter, so I presented her to the Zoological 

 Gardens in Central Park. 



In birds of prey the female is the larger and finer bird, while 

 the reverse is true with other birds; but there is a striking excep- 

 tion in the noble woodcock. ISTo bird is held in higher apprecia- 

 tion by the sportsman, and a female woodcock in full plumage is 

 as rich in coloring and as beautiful in marking as any bird I know. 

 He lies well for the dog, is rare sport for the gunner, and has no 

 equal for the palate. He nests in our alder thickets or on wet 

 marshy ground, and around my home it is the work of a man to 

 get him. He is nocturnal in his habits, feeding at night and push- 

 ing his long, slender bill into the soft ground, leaving holes that 

 to the casual eye look like worm holes, but which are easily recog- 

 nized by one familiar with his habits. 



Cow blackbirds are common to this locality during the summers, 

 and they are found in our pastures with the cattle. I have never 

 found their eggs in the nests of other birds, but they are Mormonis- 

 tic in their habits, one often having as many as a dozen wives, and 

 I have known the crow blackbird to have more than one mate. 



Some years ago an article went the rounds of the newspapers 

 telling of a man catching a flock of crows by soaking corn in alco- 

 hol and leaving it for the crows to eat, and when they became drunk 

 he caught them. I tried bread crumbs soaked in whisky on English 

 sparrows, but they would not eat them, and I finally got a crow, 

 and though I kept him until he was very hungry I could not get him 

 to eat corn soaked in whisky, and he found no difficulty in picking 



