THE OOLOmST 



181 



snakebiids from a steamer's deck on 

 th Ocklawaha river. Once in Acad- 

 emy days, Messrs. Brand, Rockwell, 

 Hale and myself fired a volley from 

 muzzle loaders across Poqiietanuck 

 cove at an indistinct quacking bunch 

 and it was not till we had paid a 

 round sum of money to a farmer for 

 four crippled muscovies that we real- 

 ized that we were trying to bag barn- 

 yard fowl. 



September 6th Cyril Paine brought 

 me a Carolina rail, picked up under 

 telephone wires at the Neighborhood. 

 I also picked up a sora at West Mys- 

 tic with the same deadly wire-mark 

 on its neck. Mrs. Murdock's cat killed 

 another rail from the ten young hatch- 

 ed in William Brown's meadow. These 

 are my only English Neighborhood 

 records, though I have heard the sora's 

 sharp call in July in our own cat- 

 tail reeds. A female was covering 

 from ten to fourteen eggs on Groton 

 Long Point for five years in succession 

 and I saw some of the tiny young 

 taken down by the big Lower Field 

 frogs. Several times half-fledged rail 

 were seen in the marx meadow west 

 of the Wildcat rocks, East Norwich. 

 1 could always find two or three pairs 

 breeding at Poquetanuck cove, and 

 from above the road at the cove I 

 took a well-matted nest for the late 

 Capt. Charles Bendire. 



The captain wished me to get for 

 him a series of nests of the local ra- 

 pacious birds, and at one time I had 

 by heroic efforts secured for him typ- 

 ical nests of red-tailed, red-shoulder- 

 ed. Cooper's, sharp-shinned, marsh, 

 and broad-winged hawks — the broad- 

 wings being the smallest in the bulky 

 lot. The great horned owl's nest had 

 been used by redtails, and the barred 

 owl's built by red-shouldered hawks. 

 With the aid of Capt. Thomas Potter 



and his lobster boat I made a stren- 

 uous attempt to tie up and transport 

 a fish hawk's nest from Sea Flower 

 beacon. It was a monstrous affair, 

 used for a generation, and in its com- 

 position had bushels of cornstalks and 

 lobster warp, yards of cables, dead 

 crows, horeshoe crabs, deer's feet, and 

 bushels of seaweed and hanging usnea 

 moss. The untimely death of Captain 

 Bendire left these large nests uncalled 

 for, and slowly falling to pieces in 

 the cellar of 193 Broadway, they were 

 finally consigned to the fire magazine 

 of the steam heater. 



In the East Woodstock list we did 

 not see the white-winged crossbill, 

 which I never failed to find in open 

 winter days in our own hemlock 

 woods. An East Woo "stock man early 

 last spring picked up an electro- 

 cuted American crossbill in red nup- 

 tial dress. I have had two woodcock 

 killed by Woodstock wires, and nearly 

 twenty mangled by 'phone and tele- 

 graph wires along the seventeen miles 

 of the Colchester turnpike. These 

 birds when fresh I have had served at 

 my table, tlius eating game out of 

 season without breaking the intent 

 or letter of the close game laws. 



There are some flight woodcock al- 

 ready around the few spring holes not 

 dried up, an occasional bird in the en- 

 silage patches, but not any in the 

 birches. Xo young bob whites have 

 been seen here, and we think the 

 early whistling cock quails could find 

 no mates and went into other towns. 

 Pheasants do not increase locally, and 

 Woodstock hunters agree with Nor- 

 wich gunners that the young do not 

 survive the terrors of winter. But the 

 grouse chicks, in moderate numbers, 

 with crops gorged with late huckleber- 

 ries, acorns, eyebright and white 

 grubs, are large as the old "biddies" 



