THE OOLOGIST. 



171 



"woodcock were picked up under our 

 ■wires. In former years I have eaten 

 a dozen woodcock out of season, pick- 

 ed up by teamsters and farmers un- 

 der electrical network, and not half 

 the woodcock killed in this way are 

 ever found. These fatalities should 

 strengthen the argument in favor of 

 ■underground wires. 



them from walls in the sunny open 

 fields. There are very few night- 

 hawks in the neighborhood, and but 

 one unmated "mosquito-hawk" on our 

 farm. 



With more reason than most whip- 

 poorwill lodges, our bungalow could 

 be named, after the weird bird of the 

 gloaming. Promptly at 8 p. m. the 

 birds' beg'in berating each other from 

 the north, east and south. We note 

 no difference in the voices of individ- 

 uals; distance only makes any change 

 in modulation or volume. On the 

 morning of June 15 one began calling 

 at 2 o'clock from our geranium rook- 

 ery, and till the big cuckoo clock 

 chimed 3 he never for a second stop- 

 ped his clamor. As often and as reg- 

 ularly as the pendulum swung, and 

 with as little change, this bird inces- 

 santly called, and then for fifteen min- 

 utes had a duet with a rival back of 

 the cattery. Then as the sun rose, 

 thrashers sang the music of the 

 spheres. The next evening a pair of 

 mating whips dashed into the face of 

 Mrs. Rawson at the cottage door; but 

 now the entire veranda is securely 

 screened in, so that we cannot be 

 troubled hy day-flyers, duck-stingers 

 and Birds That Pass in. The Night. I 

 have found but two pairs of whip- 

 poorwills' eggs in the last seven years 

 —one back of the- cattery here, and 

 one as early as June 3, at Whippoor- 

 will ledge, on Plain Hill, Norwich. 

 The marbleized eggs are on the bare 

 leaves with no depression, and the 

 sitting female cannot be distinguish- 

 ed from the surroundings. We often 

 see the males, however, perched 

 lengthwise on limbs of trees, but not 

 till this summer have we started 



An excellent set of sixteen ruffed 

 grouse eggs was found by a lineman 

 cutting poles for our new telephone. I 

 have not seen so large a set, but Ju- 

 nius A. Brand found a set of 16 in 

 Rockwell's woods'. The many clutches 

 run across by Thomas Trumbull and 

 myself when hawking, ranged from 

 11 to 14. The neighborhood teacher 

 took her scholars over to Whippoor- 

 will ledges in our woods on Flag day, 

 and had an experie^nce seldom enjoy- 

 ed by school children a-birding. They 

 surprised an old partridge with her 

 unfledged brood, and they picked up 

 for a moment and then faced one or 

 two of the tiny chicken pets. The old 

 hen charged the boy as she did us 

 in the same woods' a few days before. 

 Only in this last case the mother was 

 bold enoug-h to face an entire school. 



Two bobwhites were shot from a 

 covey below the village last fall, but 

 by the intervention of the farmer the 

 rest of the covey was saved and win- 

 tered nicely with little attention. This 

 and the depleted covey on our farm 

 are the only bunches of quail where 

 there used to be one hundred coveys 

 before the annihilating- winter of four 

 years ago. In those golden days be- 

 fore the hlizzard the large Snow farm 

 between North and South W^oodstock 

 appeared to he the center of quaildom 

 hereabouts'. Twenty nests of bob- 

 white in one season is the record for 

 this farm — one nest holding 20 eggs. 

 On our own farm that year w^ere 

 three quails' nests within six rods of 

 the back door. Cats caught the mother 

 quail off her nest near the barnyard 

 of the Snow place, and cats caught 



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