UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 117 



he began to sing. Then I led her where she could 

 see him and asked her what he was. She promptly 

 answered thaifhe was a mocking bird, so I had her 

 corroboration and that of my helper who knew the 

 caged birds well. I worked throughout the sum- 

 mer, the greater part of the time in or near this 

 location, but never saw or heard the bird again. 

 The ornithology of Indiana now includes this bird 

 in the southern part of the state, while it is listed 

 as a stray even as far north as the southern part of 

 Michigan. 



The other incident, concerning which I know I 

 shall be questioned but in which I also know I am 

 right, occurred about fifteen years ago, while I was 

 in field work with a camera. I was hiding in a fence 

 corner on one side of a highway lying about a mile 

 south and three miles west of the Limberlost. On 

 the opposite side of the road I had a camera fo- 

 cused on the nest of a pair of birds in some bushes 

 in a fence corner. While I was waiting for the 

 birds to return from food hunting there was a 

 whistling of wings, suggestive of wild doves or 

 domestic pigeons, but much clearer and higher than 

 anything I had heard since childhood. A bird 

 alighted on the telephone wire almost directly op- 

 posite where I was hiding. It was as large as the 

 largest domestic pigeon I ever had seen, longer and 

 trimmer in shape, having a long tail of only a few 

 feathers; its beak and feet were unusually red, 

 as was its nose. Over the top of its head and 



