THK OOLOaiST 



1»7 



value will this book have for Ameri- 

 can readers, American schools and 

 American children, and the answer is 

 not far to seek for more than four- 

 fifths of the material described is 

 either actually to be found somewhere 

 in this country, or else something 

 very similar. For example, "The De- 

 velopment of Seeds" is practically the 

 same the world over as is "The 

 Breathing of Plants;" the "Growth of 

 Leaves;" and, indeed, all else our au- 

 thor sets forth in this botanical side 

 of the volume, in fact the entire mat- 

 ter of plant life has been worked out 

 and illustrated in the most satisfact- 

 ory style possible, and it is truly sur- 

 prising to note how many wild plants 

 they have in Australia that are identi- 

 cally the same as those we have in 

 this country. With equal truth this 

 applies to the Sponge Studies ; Corals ; 

 Stinging Animals; Worms; Shells; 

 Crustaceans; Insects; and in fact 

 every department of nature up to and 

 including the Vertebrata, while the 

 same may be said for the admirable 

 chapters on Soils; Water; Lake 

 Studies; Rivers and the physical feat- 

 ures. In fact the book can be most 

 heartily recommended to all nature 

 students in America, including the 

 children in all your public and private 

 schools. 



R. W. Shufeldt. 

 Washington, D. C. 

 November 20, 1922. 



NOTES ON KILLDEER IN SOUTH- 

 EASTERN WYOMING 



Having read Mr. R. M. Lee's notes 

 on the Killdeer in the November issue 

 of The Oologist, I thought ii mi/;ht be 

 of interest to its readers to hear somt-- 

 thing of the nesting ol' that l)ir(! in 

 this section. I sball thcrefori' tell o.' 

 a trip of some 18 miles in length 



taken on the first of May last. 



Leaving town at about noon of said 

 date, I followed the course of the rail- 

 road north of Wheatland down what 

 was once known as a sand draw, now 

 known as a seep draw since the time 

 irrigation came into this country. 

 Any of these seeps are favorite re- 

 sorts of the Killdeer, and especially so 

 during the nesting season. Here and 

 there along the draw are large dry 

 sand bars of sand, coarse gravel, and 

 small boulders, where our noisy little 

 friend loves to make his home. In 

 the six miles of seep draw traversed 

 I observed no less than nine nests 

 containing from 3 to 4 eggs each, near- 

 ly all, however, containing 4 eggs as 

 the bird begins nesting in this locality 

 about April 20th and by May first 

 practically all the nests contain their 

 full compliment of eggs. After leav- 

 ing the seep draw, I traversed aboui 

 two miles of river bottom mostly in 

 prairie hay and in the middle of one 

 large meadow about one-fourth mile 

 from water, (in a hoof print in the 

 sod, 1 found another Killdeer's nest 

 with a full compliment of eggs. This 

 particular pair of birds were very 

 quiet in comparison with the noisy 

 birds that I had just left. On return- 

 ing home across more or less cultivat- 

 ed country, I came upon a nest in the 

 center of an alfalfa field some three 

 miles from water at that time but in 

 the course of a few weeks to come 

 within a few feet of water in an irriga- 

 tion lateral. Still another nest was 

 found some three and a half miles 

 from water at the present time but 

 .soon to be near irrigation water. This 

 nest was located on an unplowed 

 rra'rie knoll in the center of an 80 

 acre rlfalfa field. I have only one in- 

 stance of a breeding record far from 

 water and that in a dry farm cornfield 

 some fifteen miles from the nearest 

 water. However, I do not doubt that 

 the killdeer is a rather common breed- 



