104 



THE 00L0GI8T 



numbers of the common Crow and 

 with Magpies but the past two weeks 

 has added greatly to the bird life and 

 1 have observed many pairs of Spar- 

 row Hawk, Krider's Hawk, Flickers, 

 Wood Thrush, Towhees, Brown 

 Thrasher, Catbird and every small 

 pool has its pair of nesting Mallards 

 or Pintails. 



I have examined thirty-five of forty 

 Crow's nests in the vain hope of find- 

 ing a set of eggs in the brown phase 

 and but one set of eggs has been 

 heavily incubated, most of them be- 

 ing fresh or nearly so. 



Having located the nest of a Marsh 

 Hawk, I went out this morning armed 

 vv'ith a camera wishing to obtain a 

 good photograph of it and having no 

 thought of collecting the eggs as I 

 had all I cared for in my collection, 

 Init on arriving at the nest I found 

 that the eggs were of a phase that 

 I had never seen, being freely marked 

 with beautiful brown splotches. This 

 is the only set out of about a hundred 

 I have examined, that had these 

 markings. This afternoon I went out 

 into the hills of the Coteau du Mis- 

 souri to study the waterfowl, which 

 nest abundantly in the numerous 

 sloughs among those hills and in- 

 cidently searched through many 

 acres of buck brush, hoping to find 

 nests of Short-eared Owl or Prairie 

 Sharp-tailed Grouse, but all 1 was 

 able to find were two nests of Marsh 

 Hawk and a nest of Pinnated Grouse. 

 My wife found a nest of Mallard 

 which we left for the edification of 

 the nimrods of the coming season. 



Every slough and pot-hole had its 

 quota of pairs of various waterfowl 

 and among them were noted Mal- 

 lards, Pintails, Baldpate, Blue-wing 

 Teal, Spoon-bills, Greater Scaup 

 Ducks and one pair of White-winged 

 Scoter. Several pairs of Eared Grebe, 

 Coot and Pied-billed Grebe were seen. 

 All of the Ducks seemed to be in pairs 



except a number of lone drakes of 

 the Mallard and Pintail, it thus ap- 

 pearing that they are the only va- 

 rieties that have begun incubation. 



We also saw numerous pairs of Bar- 

 tramian Sandpiper, Lesser Yellow-legs 

 and a few Willet and Wilson Phala- 

 rope. The patches of buck brush 

 contain numerous clay-colored Spar- 

 rows and the grassy slopes resound 

 Vv'ith the ze-o-e-e-e of the Grasshopper 

 Sparrow. Along the edges of the 

 frain fields the beautiful Chestnut- 

 collared Longspur and McCown's 

 Longspur and Vesper Sparrow are 

 numerous. 



In the thickets of alder which line 

 the shore of some of the sloughs are 

 found many Rusty Blackbirds and 

 Kcd-wings and the Yellow-headed 

 Blackbird can be seen in the gras.^y 

 bayous. So far I have seen not a 

 single specimen of the Bronzed 

 Grackle, which is so numerous farther 

 east and south. 



A few pairs of Arkansas Kingbird 

 and Loggerhead Shrike are in evi- 

 dence in the farm groves and the first 

 Bobolink was seen today. 



A. S. Peters, 

 Donnybrook, North Dakota. 



May 20, 1923. 



SWANS 



On April 19th while fishing through 

 the ice 1 heard the familiar "honking" 

 of Geese, although the sound did not 

 sound exactly like these birds. I could 

 not see the birds although they were 

 not far away. 1 thought about it sev- 

 eral times during the day. 



The next day, April 20th, while 

 sitting in my cabin I again heard the 

 peculiar honking and this time I saw 

 the birds. They were coming across 

 the lake flying fairly high in a V- 

 shaped flight varying it at times as 

 birds of this nature do. They were a 

 magnificent flock of Swans number- 

 ing from forty to sixty birds. I was 



