14 



THE OS PREY. 



hoop. One had several piec?s of cow dun<^, and 

 a leather strap. Uaiii^ling: above another nest 

 on a limb was an old soft hat with a hole 

 tlirou.L;h its top. One couple had an old pair of 

 trousers torn in shreds wavini;- in the breeze on 

 a liuil) near their nest, while another had a piece 

 of white cloth built into the nest so that it ilut- 

 tered in the wind as a sort of ilag- of truce. 

 An old shoe and a stake pointed at one end de- 

 corated two other nests. A pair of birds have 

 had their nests on the horizontal liuib of a big- 

 elm up to last fall when the tree blew down in a 

 ,i;ale breakin.i;- ofi" about 8 feet above the g-round. 

 On this stump they built a new nest this spring-, 

 but I doubt if they were successful in raising- 

 anv young- as the nest was beside a road and 

 very accessible. — H. S. Hathaway. Providence, 



K. i. 



An Amh!TU)Its Hummer. — The present ten- 

 dency towards expansion appears not only to 

 characterize Uncle Sam's citizens of the g-enus 

 Homo, but seems to extend even to the tiniest 

 of his feathered subjects, — Trochilus coluhris. 



On May 21, I found a nest of this species in 

 the District of Columbia containing- three eggs, 

 all of normal proportions. Onh' two birds, one 

 male and one female were seen in the vicinity. 



Baktsch. 



Doriu.E Nkst of the Bai.timorb; Okioi.e. — 

 This curious nest was collected in Dulane3''s 

 Valley, Baltimore County, Mar^dand, by Mr. F. 

 C. K'.rkwood sometime in the fall of either 1894 

 or 18<>S. It was built in a Walnut tree, and not 



found until llie ynuni;' had llw\Nn. and liie iri'i- 

 had t)een blown down during- a severe wind 

 storm. 



This nest has the appearance of having- a 

 porch attached to it, and is quite closely figured 

 by a cut of a double nest of Orchard Oriole in 

 The Nidolog-ist, Vol. iv, p.30. 



The photog-raph shows the nest a little more 

 than '3 size. — Wm. H. Fisher, Baltimore, Md. 



A Parrot Stoky. — A maiden lady of a cer- 

 tain town of Cornwall owned a parrot, which 

 somehow acquired the disagreeable habit of 

 observing- at fre(iuent intervals: "I wish the 

 old lady would die." This annoyed the bird's 

 owner, who spoke to her curate about it. "I 

 think we can rectify the matter," replied the 

 g-ood man. "I also have a parrot, and he is a 

 righteous bird having- been brought up in the 

 way he should g'-o. I will lend you my parrot, 

 and will trust his iniluence will reform that 

 depraved bird of yours." The curate's parrot 

 was placed in the same room with the wicked 

 one, and as soon as the two had become ac- 

 customed to each other, the bad bird re- 

 marked: "I wish the old lady would die." 

 Whereupon the clergyman's bird rolled up his 

 eyes, and in a solemn accent added: "We be- 

 seech thee to hear us, g-ood Lord!" The story got 

 out in the parish, and for several Sundays it 

 was necessary to omit the Litany at the church 

 service. — From l/ohsc/iold Jl'o/ds. 



Thb: New Zeai.and Godwit is of the same 

 species as an Alaska bird now g-enerally call- 

 ed by American Ornithologists the Pacific 

 Godwit or Lhnosa lapponica bdueri. The Maori 

 of New Zealand have a proverb "who can tell 

 There the Kuaka [Godwit] has its nest"? Mr. 

 waylor White, of Wimbledon, N. Z., writes to 

 Nature (May 11,) "that these birds shoidd winter 

 during- a New Zealand summer, and then leaving 

 should pass throug-h both temperate and torrid 

 zones, and still onwaid to the confines of 

 the north frigid zone, is 

 truly marvellous. Will 

 any reader of Nature kindly 

 contribute to our knowledg-e 

 of the nesting- place of the 

 Godw it or the Knot, or remark 

 on other points at issue?" An 

 editorial note is added to the 

 effect that the British Museum 

 possesses a sing-le eg-g of the 

 Knot, said to be one out of a 

 clutch of four obtained at 

 Uisco Island, Greenland. 



Colonel Feilden has good 

 giounds for believing- that 

 this bird nests in the New 

 Siberian Islands". 



New Db;vice for Amateur 

 Photographers. — H e r e t o - 

 fore the photographer has 

 found it difficult, if not im- 

 possible, to g-et a g-ood picture 

 of flying birds and other 

 objects moving- in uncertain 

 directions. The difficulty has 

 Ix^-en d.nic away with by the invention of Benja- 

 min R. Sheffield of Livingston, Mont. His in- 

 vention consists of a camera mounted on i\ gun- 

 stock, and fitted with two trig-g-ers and two sights. 

 One of the trig-gers sets the shutter, while the 

 other niakes the exposure. As the gun camera 

 can be accurately aimed a narrow angle lense can 

 be used, by means of which the object on the 

 plate can be greatly enlarged as compared with 



