THE OOLOGIST. 



103 



and sitting on a pier quietly smile at 

 these happy-go-lucky fellows fishing 

 in the deep blue water. Then go home 

 and- think that the old world is not 

 such a bad place after all. 



Chas. S. Moody, 

 Sand Point, Idaho. 



Turkey Vulture in Illinois. 



Through the varying seasons of 

 many years, the stump of a gigantic 

 sycamore tree has been rotting away — 

 gradually melting back to the mother 

 soil on a bank of the Salt Fork Creek. 



The shell is yet solid but through a 

 strange action of the elements, the 

 heart is eaten out to its very roots. 

 The form left is that of a wood-curbed 

 well with the top three feet above the 

 surface and the bottom six feet below. 



Into this opening I peeped last sum- 

 mer and discovered in the Strang re- 

 treat, a mother Vulture and two 

 youngsters that looked very much like 

 cotton balls in the great dark hole. 



I would have enjoyed watching the 

 first futile attempts of the young buz- 

 zards to get out. A later visit how- 

 ever, proved they had accomplisned 

 the feat and I was forced to acknowl- 

 edge the mother cleared of a charge of 

 an error of j udgement. A more typical 

 nesting site I found in a mammoth 

 oak tree in Lynn Grove. A violent 

 storm of long ago had torn off a high 

 limb seven feet from the ground, leav- 

 ing a wound that time could not heal. 

 It ate and grew and spread until the 

 ground level was reached inside. I 

 had visited this tree many times each 

 season, and always wondering why 

 "Cathartes aura" had not chosen it 

 for a residence, I was never able to re- 

 sist peeping into the roomy tree cave. 

 Finally on May 8, 1903 my faith in 

 "aura's" judgment was rewarded. 

 At my approach a Vulture flopped out 

 of the entrance revealing a pair of 

 beautifully marked eggs. On the 



dates of April 27, 1898 and May 27, 

 1898, I found sets in positions very 

 similar to the one ju.st described. 

 Both were in the bottoms of hollow 

 living trees, the cavities reaching to 

 the ground level. On June 9, 1903, I 

 visited a lonely timber pond in another 

 grove. In the center of the pond grew 

 a large water-oak. Long since its life 

 had flown and now it stands a shining 

 naked monument, stripped by light- 

 ning bolts of its outer garments. A 

 Vulture appeared from somewhere 

 within its recesses and I climbed up 

 to investigate. Twenty feet from the 

 ground (or rather from the waterj I 

 found a cavity where the only opening 

 was toward the sky. Two feet down in 

 this safest of nesting places, two young 

 buzzards lifted their heads and hissed 

 at the intruder. I may have been the 

 first unwelcome visitor at this hidden 

 home that had been in use, perhaps 

 for many years. 



Thus I find the Illinois Vultures, and 

 birds of a practical bend, not heeding 

 fixed ancestral rules, but taking pos- 

 session of advantageous sites, whether 

 on the surface, above the level or be- 

 low the surface of the ground. 



Isaac E. Hess, 

 Philo, Illinois. 



Nesting of the Slate-colored Junco. 



May 17, 1903 as I was going down 

 the bed of a large gully looking for 

 nests of the La. Water Thrush I 

 flushed a bird from the bank beside 

 me. Supposing of course that it was a 

 La. Water Thrush. I hardly glanced 

 at it but turned my attention to the 

 nest and when I looked at the eggs I 

 knew at once that I had found some- 

 thing new to me. Putting the eggs 

 back I turned my attention to the bird 

 and found that she had flown down 

 the gully and was now making her 

 way cautiously towards me and was 

 soon but a short distance away in a 



