68 



THE OOLOGIST 



Tfie ©oro^ist 



FOURTH PUBLICATION YEAR. 



APRIL, 1879. 



In remitting subscriptions, etc., it would 

 save u!^ much vexation if our patrons would 

 remember to enclose the requisite amount. 

 It your letter states that you have enclosed 

 sixty cents, please be careful that that a- 

 mount, and not fifty or forty cents, in en- 

 closed ; and if data blanks are wanted, en- 

 close thirtij cents, the price announced. 



We desire also to state, that, owing to 

 the great accumulation of postage stamps 

 upon us, we prefer that in all cases our cor- 

 respondents send silver if paper money can 

 not be procured ; it is safe to enclose am'ts 

 of coin less than one dollar. We cannot 

 use more tiian one half the [)ostage stamps 

 sent to us in letters, and since money is pref- 

 erable we would suggest that postage stamps 

 be sent only when positively necessary. 



SUBJECTS OOLOGIOALLY OONSIDEEED. 

 00 LOGICAL MEMORANDA. 



TkURING the season of 1876 we had oc- 

 casion to make ample data in regard to 

 our oological collections, and the results of 

 that season, though not as important in re- 

 gard to the number of specimens obtained 

 as to the data secured, were especially grat- 

 ifying. The note book was constantly em- 

 ployed, find much of value, as exhibiting 

 the phenomena which a collector is likely 



to meet with during the season of oviposi- 

 tion, was observed and recorded : the few 

 specimens taken possessed a history, with- 

 out which they would have had little or no 

 value. The season in itself was a poor one 

 for oological observation in this portion of 

 the country, and there seemed to be a re- 

 markable scarcity of interesting species, the 

 commoner ones with their numbers seeming 

 to make up what-there was wanting in va- 

 riety, — and the summer would indeed have 

 been most unpromising, had it not been for 

 the interest which attached to the eggs of 

 those few common species. The value of 

 oological memoranda was then brought out 

 in all its force. 



The habits of the Bay-winged Buntings, 

 whose eggs and nests up to that season had 

 been regarded small prey, furnished mate- 

 rial for reflection and deliberation. One 

 pair had so far forsaken their old liabits as 

 to place their nest a foot above the ground, 

 in the top of a bunch of tall grasses, which 

 even swayed considerably when the wind 

 blew ; another pair of the same species 

 placed their home against a fence-post, quite 

 down in the ground. Then a pair of 8ong 

 iSparrows built a pretty nest of very fine 

 materials in an elder bush, away up near 

 the top, four feet from the ground. This 

 nest was built early in the season, and was 

 probably given a high position to escape the 

 snow and the dampness of the ground. An- 

 other pair of the same species hatched one 

 egg, the sole occupant of the nest, and an 

 early laying, too. This same pair, later 

 in the season, laid four eggs and reared the 

 young, with the addition of a bouncing 

 Blackbird. A little colony of Crow Black- 

 birds selected a site by no means roomy, 

 for nesting, since a tree not over ten feet 

 in height was made to serve the purposes 

 of three pairs, notwithstanding that the 

 crowding of their bulky nests into the small 

 space at its slender top, bent it over almost 

 enough to tip out the eggs. In an old saw- 

 mill, upon the beam which serves as a sup- 

 port to the saw guides, our two pairs of 

 Pewees again deposited their eggs, one pair 

 laying three out of the set of four with 



