THE MUSEUM. 



171 



the noise of shooting. I was out 



in a stubble field about five miles 

 from home, when I heard a bird note 

 which I thought was a Bluebird's as I 

 w^as looking for them, so I gave the 

 Bluebird's call and pretty soon saw a 

 bird up in the air. It had chang- 

 ed its note, however, and imitating it 

 I soon called it down, but the puppy 

 flushed it before I saw what it was. I 

 marked it down again, and holding the 

 dog in, approached cautiously and saw 

 it was a Lapland Longspur, {Calcar- 

 ins lapponicus) in beautiful spring 

 plumage. I had shot it only once be- 

 fore, (January 30, 1889) and was anx- 

 ious to obtain it. At the risk of mak- 

 ing my dog gun-shy, I held him and 

 crept up to within i 5 feet of it and shot 

 at it with a shot cartridge from a 38 

 cal. 4-2 in. barrel revolver, but did not 

 harm it. It alighted again in a furrow 

 where it was moist, and I crept up 

 to same distance, and fired without 

 result, although I hit it both times. I 

 flushed it next time and then had a 

 third chance at not over 12 feet, when 

 being hit harder it flew out of sight as 

 I watched it with disappointed gaze. 

 I examined cartridges and found they 

 did not have powder enough to be of 

 any service whatever, and I missed a 

 rare bird in consequence. 



I made a beginning on eggs this sea- 

 son by collecting a set of two, Great 

 Horned Owl on March i ith. On the 

 7th I took a trolley car to City Line, 

 and walked to Lake Shore to a piece 

 of woods one mile long up to one half 

 mile wide, extending from Stony Point 

 to Smolk's Creek. Was fortunate in 

 finding nest in the second tree I exam- 

 ined. It was in the top of a stub, and 

 I found it by seeing the female's tail 

 projecting. Did not disturb her at all 



as I did not have my climbers. Was 

 not able to get out again till the i ith, 

 when I went prepared, and with the 

 assistance of a friend living near there, 

 obtained two fine eggs incubated about 

 a week. 



I first climbed a near tree to get a 

 snap at Mrs. Bubo at home, but as 

 she was adverse to receiving strangers 

 I had to be content with a chance at 

 her house. "■'" I next waited half an 

 hour to get a picture of her return, and 

 succeeded as she spread her wings to 

 sail into nest. You will notice up in the 

 left hand corner that I got two other 

 birds on the wing. The smaller is a 

 Crow and nearer is a Goshawk {Accip- 

 itcr artricapillus). You may be sur- 

 prised at the latter, but I feel sure of 

 the identification as after following 

 Owl to nest it sailed around half a 

 dozen times over me just at the top of 

 the trees, and I had an excellent op- 

 portunity to observe it. My friend 

 could have shot it as he had the gun 

 in another part of the woods, but he 

 was afraid of scaring the Owl. 



While waiting for the return of the 

 Owl a Mink passed me within a dozen 

 feet. I snapped camera at it without 

 aim and did not find it in picture. Got 

 another snap as Owl jumped out of 

 nest and before she opened her wings, 

 but plate was overexposed. After this 

 I climbed for the eggs and my friend 

 did some snapping my friend stand- 

 ing at foot of Owl stub. The stub is 

 43 feet high. This is the third set 1 

 have taken from this pair. Last year 

 I found the nest on March 8th and took 

 eggs on loth from top of a stub 42 

 feet high. I lassoed the top from a 



* Mr. Savage sent us nine extremely in- 

 teresting views but for want of space we 

 could only use part of two. 



