THE OOLOGIST 



83 



also black; scapulars, primary, great- 

 er, middle and lesser coverts reddish 

 brown; tertials, secondaries and pri- 

 Crest bluish-white with eight dark 

 spots on each feather, forming eight 

 distinct rows. 



The Crested Tit is the rarest of the 

 tribe and is seldom met with outside 

 of the dense spruce forests of the 

 mountains. Although I have tramp- 

 ed over a large part of the country 

 surrounding Vevey, I have yet to find 

 this species occurring below 3600 feet. 

 The species observed at this altitude 

 were seen among the spruces near 

 the summit of Mt. Cubby, in a forest 

 so dense that it was with no little dif- 

 ficulty that the coloring of the birds 

 was correctly determined. Like the 

 Coal Tit,, the crested species seem to 

 find as much food upon the ground as 

 in the crevices of bark and conse- 

 quently they spend a great deal of 

 their time upon the soft floors charac- 

 teristic to the forests which they in- 

 habit. 



If the crested tit has a regular song, 

 I have yet to hear it, in fact, I have 

 only heard their call note, a weak 

 "Tseep", "Tseep", or a more drawn 

 out "Tseeeep", resembling that of a 

 Brown creeper. 



The nest is composed of almost any- 

 soft material such as wool, horse hair, 

 plant fibres or feathers and is placed 

 in situation characteristic to the tit 

 tribe. The eggs vary in number from 

 five to eight. They are white, sprin- 

 kled with reddish brown, the spots 

 forming an indistinct wreath around 

 the larger end. They measure .62 x 

 .48. P. G. HOWES. 



Who Knows? We Don't. 



"During July, 1909, I was interested 



one day in watching a Barn Swallow 



feeding her young. The young sat on 



a telegraph wire and the old bird, af- 



ter procuring food, would fly to them 

 and without stopping, would deposit 

 the food in the open mouth of the 

 young bird as she passed. The per- 

 formance was repeated many times, 

 the old bird always passing under the 

 wire and the young bird opening its 

 mouth to receive the tid-bit at her 

 approach. Is this method of feeding 

 the young customary with Barn Swal- 

 lows or Swallows in general as soon 

 as the young leave the nest? 



H. E. BISHOP." 



A Correction. 



I find among my early contributions 

 to THE OOLOGIST at page 237, Vol- 

 ume 6, an error that should be cor- 

 rected. This note should read Fe- 

 male Rose-breasted Grosbeak instead 

 of Cedar Waxwing. The Grosbeak at 

 that time was an entirely new bird to 

 this locality and I took it for the fe- 

 male Waxwing. That was in the good 

 old days when I would rather paint 

 and draw the birds than go to the 

 woods, but now I do both and enjoy it. 

 GEO. W. H. VOS BURGH. 



We have recently had the pleasure 

 of examining the check list of the col- 

 lection of the well-known ornitholo- 

 gist, A. E. Price of. Grant Park. Illi- 

 nois, and find he has the unusual num- 

 ber of 702 species and sub-species rep- 

 resented in his collection of North 

 American birds eggs. That his col- 

 lection is an unusually valuable one 

 as to rarity of specimens represented 

 may be judged by the fact that in 

 checking his list against our own, we 

 find 57 varieties in his collection not 

 represented in ours. 



Sunday, May 30, 1909, the nest of a 

 Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufus) 

 was found in the Catholic cemetery at 

 Henry, Illinois, built on the ground 

 at the base of a sweet clover bush. So 



