72 



THE OOLOGIST. 



la case i)f the ucsts of the Chat as of 

 other birds that are imposed upon b^' 

 the Cowbirds, au egg or two of the 

 builder of the nest will almost invaria- 

 bly be found on the ground under the 

 uest, after the Cowbird has done her 

 work. 



These eggs are generally beak-chii)ped 

 and there seems little doubt that the 

 Cowbird not only usurps the nest, but 

 sucks the eggs of the birds whom she 

 chooses as the foster-parents of her 

 young. Though cleverly hidilcii. the 

 Chat's nest is not hard to 11 ud — alter 

 you have found one: 



Go into a thicket,:— listen; if you h( ar 

 a Chat who s«ems drunk, and w ho al^o 

 becomes. crazy as you approach his f:i\ - 

 urite copse, mark the spot, search well 

 the nest is before you. 



Now for the Swallow portion of our 

 "pie": During my trip to Kansas, last 

 June, as my host, the genial ranchman 

 and I were galloping across prairie and 

 over hill, en route for the haunts of the 

 Missi.-sippi Kite, I noticed that troops 

 of Cliff Swallows attended us every- 

 where, which I woulleied at, not having 

 noticed any uest upon the baru'^ in the 

 litte town which we had left far behind 

 us; and knowing that in all that wild, 

 broken region of the gypsum hills, there 

 were no barns, worthy tlie dignity of 

 the name. 



But, the canons reached, there came 

 a solution. My broncho had just land- 

 ed me across a creek, with a few vigor- 

 ous buckings of remonstrance, when I 

 chanced to turn and fasten my eyes up- 

 on a high bank some eighty or one hun- 

 dred feet in altitude, its surface com- 

 posed of t!ie prevalent brick clay c f the 

 Medicine River region, interspersed 

 with thin strata of crystalline gypsum. 

 Just a clay bank, but what was the 

 matter wilh Uv W;irly. honey-comliy 

 in patches! ah, tiiere breed the Ciiff 

 Swallows! 



One little clustciof two hundred nests 

 or so near the upper left-hand corner of 



the cliff; another, half waydow n; a lar. 

 ger square one, near the right, and a^ 

 little lower; a little cluster very near 

 the surface line one-third of the way up 

 to the left; and a large colony to the 

 right of the center of the cliff and reach^. 

 iug to within si.x or eight feet of the 

 l)ile of crumbled clay which might be 

 called the b(jttom of the cliff. 



Jack-knife in hand, I climbed, by 

 niches cut over the gypsum strata until 

 I could barely reach the lower nests. 

 How I ever secured my four handsome 

 sets of eggs will never be told — nor can 

 be. Most of the nests were gourd shap- 

 ed, those that were not being such in 

 the main, as filled up the interstices, 

 All nests Avere of the red clay, and were 

 sparse!}' lined with grass. Occasional-- 

 ly a straw was worked into the masonrj^ 

 and many nests were fastened to the 

 under side of plates of gyjisum from 

 which the clay had dissolved. "How 

 many uestsv" I counted seventy-fiA-'e in 

 one corn r of the larger colony. Aa 

 nearly as I could calculate, there were 

 between iwo thousand and three thous- 

 and nests, in all. 



All these nests had been built within 

 two weeks, a heav3-rain just preceeding 

 that time having cleared the cliflf. A 

 typical nesl. wilh its gypsum roof and 

 a straw or two inwrought now lies on 

 my mantel. I carried it, cotton swathed 

 in my tin collecting box, on my bron- 

 cho's back, seven miles at a keen gallop 

 through driving rain, n)y beast once 

 bucking forty rods at a stretch, as ray 

 slicker Happed her Hanks. I was dieuch- 

 ed; i)Ut the nest was safe Is it not a 

 treasure among ti'easuresV 



P. B. Pea BODY. 



A Hartford, Conn., Collector asks: 

 "Why can't H. U. D., of Plucnix, Ariz, 

 lake a step ladder wit h him in a wag' 

 onv" in reply to the "Wanted Advice" 

 article in January Oologist. 



