io6 



Uniisital Nesting Sites. 



many groups of wild ocean islands. They 

 seem to care little whether the regions they 

 haunt are warm or cold; and they are said 

 particularly to like to be monarchs of desert 

 uninhabited regions. 



You may have read many wonderful 

 stories of eagles. I have a true one to re- 

 late, which some of the young readers of 

 the Audubon may not have heard. And 

 many older readers do not know that the 

 child's magazine called the Little Corporal 

 was established and gained large success 

 through an "Eagle Army" of children, as 

 they were named, because they each paid 

 ten cents for a colored photograph of " Old 

 Abe," the "War Eagle" of the Eighth 

 Wisconsin Regiment of A^olunteers. Yes, 

 it was a live eagle, this "Old Abe," and he 



was carried three years in the war of the 

 Union, through all the dangers of camp 

 and battle, by soldiers in that regiment. 

 And he lived some years afterward, ten- 

 derly supported in the State House Park at 

 Madison, Wisconsin. 



I saw him once in a procession at Chicago, 

 perched high over a wagon, with his white 

 beard and folded wings, looking in wise, 

 solemn attitude as if he would rebuke the 

 whole great land of freedom that ever it 

 had warred against itself. Old Abe Eagle 

 at that time was sacredly guarded, but he 

 ■was in no danger of trying his wings for a 

 wide excursion; he had adopted civilized 

 life, and felt free enough among the folds 

 of the flag of stars, exhibiting himself to 

 thousands on the streets of a great city. 

 Emily Thacher Bennett. 



UNUSUAL NESTING SITES. 



THE following observations on some 

 unusual nesting sites from the Nat- 

 ural History columns of Forest and Stream 

 are from a paper read by W^alter E. Bryant 

 before the California Academy of Sciences: 



The entire material, with one exception, which 

 comprises the present paper, has been received in 

 brief notes or dictations from Messrs. W. Otto 

 Emerson, A. M. Ingersoll and Chas. W. Knox, 

 leaving the part taken by the author simply that of 

 editor and compiler. The initials following the 

 cases cited are those of the observers, to whom my 

 thanks are due for communicating their interesting 

 field observations. 



Arkansas Flycatcher — Tyrannus ve7-ticalis. — A 

 nest was found built upon a fence-post more than 

 half a mile from the nearest tree. It was secured 

 from observation on one side by a board nailed to 

 the post and projecting above it. (A. M. I.) 



Black Phcebe — Sayoniis nigficans. — A pair built 

 for two consecutive years in a well four feet below 

 the surface. The first year a second nest was built 

 after the first had been taken. * (W. O. E.) 



Baird's Flycatcher — Epidonax difficilis. — A nest 

 was built at the bottom of a hole five inches deep, 

 made by a red-shafted flicker in a live oak. (A.M.I.) 



Blue-fronted Jay — Cyanocitta stcUeri frontalis. — A 



strange departure from the usual habits of jays was 

 noticed in Placer county, Cal., where they had per- 

 sisted in building within the snowsheds in spite of 

 the noise and smoke of passing trains. The de- 

 struction of their nests by the men employed on the 

 water train, which makes two trips a week through 

 the sheds during the summer, sprinkling the wood- 

 work and tearing down the nests of jays and robins 

 with a hook attached to a pole, seemed not to dis- 

 courage them. So accustomed do the jays become 

 to the passing of trains, that they will often remain 

 on their nests undisturbed. 



In one season more than two hundred nests of 

 jays and robins were destroyed, so the trainmen say, 

 between Cisco and Summit, a distance of thirteen 

 miles. Some of the nests were but partially built, 

 others contained eggs; these latter ones having 

 probably been overlooked on previous trips. 



The nesting of the jays within the snowsheds is, 

 so Mr. Ingersoll supposes, to avoid the persecution 

 of squirrels. None, he thinks, however, succeed in 

 rearing a brood, for of more than thirty nests which 

 he found, nearly all were uncompleted. (A. M. I.) 



American Goldfinch — Spimis tristis. — In 1884 a 

 grove of young willows that had been occupied the 

 previous season by a colony of tricolored blackbirds 

 was found deserted by them. Many of the black- 

 birds' nests still remained in forks of the willows 



