THE OOLOGIST. 



73 



Though the species frequently re- 

 mains in the county during^ the winter 

 months, still as a rule the birds are 

 found with us for about seven months 

 of the year and generally less than this. 

 It is evident that the birds leave the 

 neighborhood and spend the balance of 

 their time at the north in the country 

 as they are never seen in my neighbor- 

 hood after October 27th, while they are 

 to be found in abundance as late as No- 

 vember 1st in the fields and woods. 



The following dates of appearance 

 •and disappearance are given as recorded 

 for the neighborhood, though these 

 dates must not be taken as the regular 

 dates of arrival and and departure for 

 the county. 



1897, arrived Ap. 6, last seen, Oct. 21. 



1898, arrived Ap. 4, last seen Oct. 17. 



1899, arriv'd Mar. 30, last seen Oct. 26. 



1900, arrived Ap. 2, last seen Sept. 26. 



1901, arrived Ap. 3, last seen Oct. 27. 

 1902, arriv'd Mar. 30. last seen Oct. 25. 



1903, arrived A p. 7, last seen Oct. 16. 



1904, arrived Ap. 11, last seen, Oct. 2. 



The birds do not sing upon their ar- 

 rival and are with us all of a week be- 

 fore the first notes are given and some- 

 times quite two weeks before the regu- 

 lar song is uttered, though a few half 

 articulate notes are occasionally heard 

 as if the performer were practicing 

 soto voce. 



The earliest nest construction was be- 

 gun May 5th, but the birds were not 

 observed in nest building each season. 

 One season, 1901, the pair started two 

 nests, nearly completing one, in ever- 

 greens, and then selected another posi- 

 tion and reared their young, quite re- 

 moved from the first location. Indecis- 

 ion seems common with them and one 

 spring the pair did not begin building 

 until May 28th. 



In 1904 I had an excellent opportunity 

 to observe the nesting habits as the pair 

 selected a large Burr oak Quercus ma- 

 crocarpa which shaded my favorite 

 seat in our backyard. The nest was 

 placed at the side of a large limb at 



about thirty feet from the ground and 

 was built between some slight supports 

 offered by small twigs from a large 

 Trumpet creeper which attached to the 

 limb. 



Both birds shared in incubation as 

 with the common tame pigeon and all 

 of its varieties and as I have observed 

 in the Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes 

 migratorius both wild and in confine- 

 ment. Both birds had low, pleasing 

 notes when greeting their mate at the 

 nest and these subdued notes were 

 nearly always uttered when the birds 

 took their tricks at setting, though the 

 full song was never uttered in the tree 

 holding the nest and the birds were very 

 silent and unobtrusive about their 

 homes at all times. When one of the 

 pair was to leave the nest and make 

 way for its mate it did not fly from the 

 edge of the nest as do the robins and 

 other well known species of perchers 

 but generally stood upon a near by limb 

 and watched its mate settle upon the 

 eggs, but not rarely returning to the 

 edge of the nest and billing and cooing 

 over its mate. 



The period of incubation is 16 or 17 

 days and on June 3rd, 1904, the young 

 emerged from the shells and received 

 their food in the manner of all members 

 of his family. The young are not fed 

 as often as are the nestlings of the in- 

 sessores and after they were three or 

 four days old the parents fed them not 

 oftener than every hour. Not infre- 

 quently one of the old birds would sit 

 near the nest and wait until the food 

 was pre-digested ; this sometimes tak- 

 ing nearly an hour. 



I could not discover that the old birds 

 ever fed their mate but know that they 

 alternate in incubation and judere that 

 the trick of a bird in setting is about an 

 hour. 



At the end of fourteen or fifteen cays 

 the young were sufficiently developed 

 to step from the nest and sit upon a 

 large limb, returning to the structure 

 the first night. The second day of their 



