58 



THE OOLOGIST. 



Adventures of a Grosbeak Family. 



The beautiful Rose-breasted Grosbeak 

 is a common summer resident of and a 

 well known and favorite bird in Jasper 

 county, Iowa. I have found them nesting- 

 in box elder trees at from six to thirty 

 feet from the ground. Their nests are 

 very frail structures and the comple- 

 ment of eggs three, sometimes four. 

 They are imposed upon by the cowbird. 

 Fully agreeing with the article in the 

 the Oologist written by Mr. B. S. 

 Bowish, I have tried to make the 

 above as concise as possible. 



A pair of grosbeaks have nested for 

 the last three years in a box elder tree 

 in our backyard, hardly twenty feet 

 from the door. Last spring they arriv- 

 d from their winter resort on May 5th 

 and very soon after commenced nest 

 building. We watched their frail nest 

 grow from day to day until it contained 

 three eggs.. After careful brooding by 

 both parents, at the end of two weeks, 

 three tiny chips off the old block were 

 safely ushered into bird dom. About 

 this time a spying Blue Jay thought 

 that something similar to veal would 

 suit him for breakfast. Happening 

 near, he soon changed his mind, and 

 decided that a brisk walk or rather a 

 fly would benefit his appetite and con- 

 stitution. For the male grosbeak as- 

 sisted by two screeching robins, which 

 he had called to his aii, soon made him 

 hike out of sight on th i overland route. 

 One bright day near the first of June, 

 we observed the three youngsters 

 perched at different heights in the tree, 

 uttering at regular intervals their 

 mournful little cry. They eventually 

 reached the ground, where the children 

 caught and patted them, placing them 

 time and again in the nearby trees and 

 a lilac bush, where they would stoutly 

 cling and climb as high as they could 

 towards the end of the limb. They 

 would allow us to approach at any 

 time and stroke their heads, at which 



they would open their mouths at us as 

 if expecting food. The mother would 

 fearlessly come to feed them while I 

 stood only three feet away, but the 

 father would never come out of the 

 trees. 



At last after several days two of 

 them disappeared, but the third a little 

 male, stayed several days longer. He, 

 a funny little fuzzy miniature of his 

 illustrious father, was still covered 

 with yellow down, as when he left the 

 nest, and would always be seen hopping^ 

 or taking three yard flights along the 

 ground. One morning while I was eat- 

 ing breakfast, I was startled by the ex- 

 cited calls of birds in our front yard. I 

 rushes out to find the mother Grosbeak 

 flittin excitedly from tree to tree, 

 while at the foot of an oak a wood- 

 pecker was waging war against her off- 

 spring. • I ran toward them, firing a 

 club at the red headed rascal as I went, 

 and picking up the poor young advent- 

 urer, found he had been severly pecked 

 about the head and mouth by the stout 

 sharp bill of the woodpecker, who was 

 now exulting over his victory from the 

 top of a neighboring telephone pole. 

 The sides of the young bird's mouth 

 were badly torn and his throat was so 

 filled with blood that he could not peep. 

 After washing his mouth out with warm 

 water and rubbing his wounds with cos- 

 moline, I placed him in the sun on our 

 wide front porch, from which on the 

 following day he followed his mother 

 off into the wide world somewhere, 

 none the worse for his exciting adven- 

 ture. J. L. SLOANAKER. 



One day last summer I discovered a 

 Wood Thrushes nest containing one egg. 

 On visiting it again I found three eggs. 

 Then there was an interval of about a 

 week before I got time to go to it 

 again. Upon arriving I was very much 

 surprised to see a Robin fly off the 

 nest. I climbed up and found that the 

 nest contained 3 Thrushes' eggs and 3 



