32 



THE OOLOGIST. 



to a hillside, which was grown up with 

 manzanita and various trees. A small 

 nest was noticed, nicely concealed in 

 the center of a manzanita bush, seven 

 feet from the ground, the manzanita 

 leaves affording it protection, because 

 of their light gray color. Soon two 

 Black-throated Gray Warblers appeared 

 in a tree overhead, chirping vigorously 

 at my intrusion and claiming the nest. 

 The eggs, four in number were advanc- 

 ed in incubation and were preserved 

 without blowing. The nest was placed 

 in a crotch of the bush and composed 

 almost entirely of soft, light grayish 

 plant stems, with a few small strips of 

 bark intermixed. It is lined very spar- 

 ingly with horse-hair and a few feathers. 

 Chester Barlow. 



The Dickcissel or Black-throated 

 Bunting-. 



Although this bird seems to be in- 

 creasing greatly in numbers every year, 

 it was not until 1S95 that I began to 

 pay particular attention to him. 



A short distance up the avenue I find 

 him sitting on a telephone wire seren- 

 ading the fields round about him with 

 chink, chink, chee-cheechee, repeated 

 over and over again at short intervals 

 at all hours of the day. 



The nest is not far from where he sits 

 singing this ditty; but he shows no 

 alarm about your finding it. 



In the past three years I have found 

 four sets of this species as follows: 



A set of four fresh eggs on June 11, 

 1895; a set of four slightly incubated 

 eggs on June 29, 1895; a set of five fresh 

 eggs on June 18, 1896 and a set of two 

 slightly incubated eggs on July 8, 1897. 



The set taken July '8 was the only 

 one taken that year, and seems to have 

 been rather late. Of this set I have the 

 following description: 



Number of eggs, 2; incubation begun, 

 nest, in bunch of clover 4 inches from 

 the ground; was composed of grass and 



weed stems, and lined with finer grasses 

 and horse hair; depth inside, 2i inches; 

 inside diameter, 2f inches; outside 

 diameter, 4i inches; height, 5* inches; 

 eggs resemble those of the Blue- 

 bird Doth in color and size and 

 measure 1 3-16 x 5-8 and 7-8 x 11-16 . 

 inches. 



Spiza americana arrives in the early 

 part of May and leaves in the latter 

 part of August or early in September, 

 spending the winter beyond the limits 

 of the United States. 



The forepart of the head is greenish 

 olive, hind head, neck and cheeks dark 

 ash gray; streak over eye and mandible, 

 lower neck and middle of the breast 

 yellow; chin white, throat black, sides 

 gray, abdomen white, and lesser wing 

 coverts bright chestnut; length, 6i 

 inches 



The female resembles the male ex- 

 cepting the black on the throat. 



Its food consists of caterpillars, in- 

 sects, and immense numbers of canker- 

 worms early in the summer; it also eats 

 seeds of of various grasses. 



Glen M. Hathorn, 

 Cedar Rapids, la. 



Wrapping" Eggs for Packing. 



An old subscriber makes the follow- 

 ing request which we trust will have a 

 tendency to abate the "thread nuis- 

 ance:' 



"I wish you would point out to some 

 oologists the mistake they make in 

 wrapping yards of thread around the 

 cotton in which small eggs are wrap- 

 ped. It does not insure the safety of 

 the eggs at all, if anything, "it adds to 

 the chance of breakages, and it takes 

 four times as long to unpack eggs 

 wrapped around with two feet of thread 

 and life is too short to waste in unpack- 

 ing a lot of small eggs wrapped up in 

 this way and one requires the patience 

 of Job to do it." 



