THE OOLOGIST. 



75 



only by ornithologists but by all-, every 

 man had something to say about the 

 scarcity of Bluebirds in particular. It 

 was mentiori,ed in newspa^ ers as well 

 as in scientific ones. 



The absence of the Doves was not so 

 marked as that of the Bluebirds, on oc- 

 count of their not being so numerous 

 when the cold began, but the student 

 of nature was not long to discover that 

 they were almost entirely wanting in 

 some sections where they once were 

 numerous. Their gentle cooing was 

 not heard by the roadside as it had 

 been in former years. The cold had 

 entirely swept them from the places 

 where they were once plentiful, not 

 numerous, but could be heard by the 

 roadside and on the edges of the tields. 

 They have become frequent in some 

 places since the time I am talking of. 



Another of our birds that suffered 

 greatly was the Bobwhite. Covies of 

 those innocent little birds would all 

 huddle together to get warm, and some- 

 times be found all frozen to death in a 

 bunch; how cold they must have gotten 

 to huddle up in a bunch and froze to 

 death. It looks as if they had taken to 

 their wings for a spell they might have 

 gotten warm, but the weather was so 

 cold from day to day, and the ground 

 frozen so hard, that they could get but 

 very little to eat, so it would seem as if 

 they died of hunger as much as of cold. 



One day while walking along a road 

 through a piece of woods, I saw a Caro- 

 lina Wren in a slight hollow in a pine 

 stump standing by the side of the road; 

 on investigation it proved to be dead, 

 and appeared to have been there for 

 sometime. I left it in its silent and 

 elevated grave to sleep the sleep of 

 natures rest. 



One day after a thunder storm I was 

 walking across a field in which were 

 small pine bushes growing here and 

 there, as it happened, I stumbled on 

 an overturned nest a Chipping Sparrow 

 with its contents, four eggs, laying on 



the ground below unbroken, and 

 buried in the mud about half. The 

 parent birds were nowhere to be seen. 



In the latter part of April 1898 there 

 came a rain storm with some snow, and 

 the wind blew hard and steady all the 

 while. The nests of birds were blown 

 out and the eggs destroyed. Walking 

 through the woods you might see over- 

 turned nests of various kinds, and once 

 in a while a young bird was seen, wet 

 and cold if not dead. One nest par- 

 ticularly noticed by me was one of the 

 Pine Warbler, placed on a pine limb at 

 the height of twenty-five feet from the 

 ground. I found it lying on the ground, 

 with egg shells in and around it. I had 

 calculating to get a set of eggs from it 

 as soon as I could catch the bird on the 

 nest — to know for certain it was ready 

 to take — and not have to climb up and 

 run the risk of causing the birds to 

 leave the nest before a full complement 

 was to be obtained. 



I found nests of Pine Warblers, Chip- 

 ping Sparrows and the White-breasted 

 Nuthatch destroyed. 



One touching scene came to my eyes, 

 it was the dead body of a young Caro- 

 lina Wren, wet and cold he yielded to 

 the grim hand of death. How many 

 more followed? Surely many of the 

 young of all the earlier species perished 

 in the rain and snow; draggled and wet 

 and cold, I saw some that looked as if 

 they would die in a few more hours 

 R. P. Smithwick. 

 Merry Hill, N. C. 



