52 



THE OOLOGIST 



little recreation, and is again giving 

 attention to Oology. He has recently 

 come into the possession of the en- 

 tire collection formerly belonging to 

 Mr. E. A. Doolittle. 



As May is the great migration 

 month for Warblers and the month in 

 which many of the rarer species nest 

 in the middle and southern parts of 

 the ITnited States, we propose issuing 

 a special Warbler number the coming 

 month of May. No bird lover interest- 

 ed in this interesting family of birds 

 can afford to do without this issue. 



F. A. W. Dean of Alliance, Ohio, re- 

 ports an Albino Bob-white which he 

 has recently mounted. He likewise re- 

 ports the rumor of an entire covey of 

 these birds near Edna, Ohio. If so, 

 it is truly to be hoped that they will 

 be rigorously protected in the hopes of 

 developing a race of this character of 

 birds. 



As this issue goes to press, the Edi- 

 tor is on his way to Moose Jaw, in 

 Southern Saskatchewan on a business 

 trip, but will not fail to observe any of 

 the feathered tribe that fall under our 

 vision during our absence, and only 

 regret that we are unable to stay and 

 experience an early Spring's collecting 

 in Southern Saskatchewan as last sea- 

 son we experienced a late Spring's col- 

 lecting season in Central Saskatche- 



There Are Few of This Kind. 

 Malcolm W. Rix, 23 Vrant St., Utica, 

 New York, is one of the few, very few 

 who are built upon such a minute 

 scale as to take THE OOLOGIST for 

 a number of years, and then refuse to 

 pay for it cr further accei)t it. It is 

 a pleasure to us and a benefit to oolo- 

 gists in general to be rid of such. 



Prairie Falconing. 



By Fred Truesdale. 

 The Prairie Falcon is more or less 

 common in certain parts of California 

 and extends to the Eastern border of 

 the plains. Their length is 16.20, 

 wing 12-14, tail 6-9, culmen 1 inch. 

 They can easily be identified by the 

 cackle, and the blackish patch on the 

 sides of throat. Their food consists 

 chiefly of small mammals, birds and 

 occasionally chickens which they 

 catch. The flight is very rapid, rap- 



id enough to catch a pigeon on the 

 wing. 



I have seen this facon fly into a flock 

 of chickens and strike one, and leave 

 it lie on the ground, returning again 

 and get another one in the same man- 

 ner, until they have killed off nine 

 chickens. They are very injurious to 

 the chicken men. They are very shy 

 and therefore, it is very hard to get 

 a shot at one of them. 



During the winter of 1909 there 

 were a pair of them that stayed in a 

 tree near the town of Shandon, Cali- 

 fornia, but alas! someone killed them 

 in the early spring, or they left in 

 search of a place to nest. 



One day in March last, I set out to 

 find where these birds made their 

 nests. After a three days trip I had 

 located four pair of the birds in San 

 Guis County, and four nests of the 

 Ames Raven. The first being nearly 

 complete; the other three just start- 

 ed. On the 18th of March I made an- 

 other visit to the first nest. It then 

 contained six fresh eggs, but was a 

 very difficult nest to get to, and I had 

 to make a trip home to get a better 

 line of tools, getting more rope and 

 some good pegs to put in the ground to 

 tie to. 



This nest was on a small shelf and 

 the cliff seventy feet high. The nest 

 twenty feet from the top. The cliff 

 was a little overhanging, the dirt being 

 very soft. I was afraid that, 

 it might tumble into the 

 nest on the eggs. I secured 

 the eggs, but at a risk of getting them 

 all smashed up; but two of them were 

 dented up a little. 



In April I made another trip and 

 found a set of five eggs of Prairie 

 Falcon. The cliff was 120 feet high 

 and sixty feet straight up from the bot- 

 tom was the nest in a sort of cup 

 rounded out by the birds. I fixed my 

 outfit and secured the set; all five of 

 these eggs were of a purplish color, 

 and were nearly fresh. Of all Falcon 

 eggs I have seen, I never saw a set 

 like it before. 



I made still another trip in .June 

 and secured three more of these eggs, 

 half incubated, of the same type. Most 

 of the eggs I have seen were reddish 

 buff, blotched with brown, or red and 

 brown, being sometimes very heavily 

 marked. 



