THE OOLOGIST. 



33 



j cealing them among the dead weeds and 

 I stubble, or in the lower stories of woods, 

 in which places they may always be seen. 

 A favorite haunt is the weed}' bank of a 

 small stream, uot far from woods. On 

 alarming them they frequently fly to the 

 tops of near trees, (whence the name), and 

 one will sit there several minutes, uttering 

 his metalic chip every few seconds, twitch- 

 ing his tail nervously, and frequently turn- 

 ing around. 



Floundering through deep snowdrifts 

 one winter day, 1 found a large flock scat- 

 tered through a corn field where the stalks 

 were standing. They were busily tugging 

 at the seeds of weeds which the stalks had 

 protected from the deep snows. All over 

 the white surface were scattered the brown 

 iind black seeds. These birds very often 

 light in the wood road and tish up their 

 food from the ground. They almost con- 

 stantly keep up a sort of chattering which 

 ':. sounds like the squeaking of dozens of 

 \ pairs of scissors, but occasiouall}' in spring 

 f; thej^ give a beautiful song, which entitles 

 them to the rank of true bird-poets, for 

 do not the truer poets sing more rarel}^ 

 than the mere versifiers? The majority of 

 the birds leave for a northern home in 

 April, having, however, left behind a good 

 many unfortunate brethren — victims to the 

 terocity and greed of the Great Northern 

 Shrike. S. L. Wiiitcomb, 



Grinnell, la. 



••♦-• 



Nests of the Green Heron. 



Last summer, while 1 was strolling leis- 

 urely through an old orchard in the 

 Wester Reserve in search of eggs, I espied 

 a great heap of brush in the topmost part 

 of an apple tree. Little thinking that ray 

 eyes would .soon rest on a beautiful clutch 

 of eggs, I climbed steadily up to make 

 sure that it was uot an old nest. The 

 limb on which the nest was placed was 

 long and slanting, with hardl}^ a branch on 

 it. After a hard climb I finallj^ came to 

 the great structure, and peeping over, 

 without the least expectation of seeing an 

 Ciig. as it looked so old and clumsy. But 



alas! I was agreeably surprised, as five 

 large, greenish-blue eggs lay before me. 

 They were Green Herons. 



I i-apidly descended to look for more and 

 I had not gone twenty feet, when 1 saw a 

 similar structure. Up I went as I fast as I 

 could go, and when within three feet of 

 the nest, the old bird flew off. She was 

 very large and the expanse of her wings 

 must have measured three feet. 



I watched the Heron as she darted 

 through the branches and finally out into 

 the clearing, also the peculiar way they 

 fly, as they carry their neck, head and long 

 bill in a straight line befoie their body, and 

 their long legs in like manner stretched out 

 behind. The bill of the bird is long, com- 

 pressed and sharp; the tail short, but the 

 legs and toes are long and slender. The 

 wings are also long. Color, black, white 

 and slate, finely blended. 



Out of the four nests I found that after- 

 noon, two contained five eggs and two four, 

 all of which were about the same size, viz : 

 1.55 by 1.35. They were unspotted and 

 elliptical. 



The nests were placed about thirty-five 

 feet from the ground and a short distance 

 from a smaU creek. They were made 

 large and flat, measuring between five and 

 six feet in circumference, chiefly composed 

 of apple twigs, some of which were half 

 an inch thick. F. \\. C. 



Cleveland, O. 



Bird Notes From Iowa. 



I saw a little action of a Hairy Wood- 

 pecker this winter which is worthy of 

 mention. As I was sawing wood in my 

 back yard, a female Hairy came bounding 

 up, and lit on a neighbor's fence-post. 

 Eyeing me curiously for a moment, she 

 then flew down to the back steps to the 

 house and began vigorously tugging at 

 something which I could not see. Stand- 

 ing up straight, sounding every now and 

 then a loud "chirp," and pulling with that 

 powerful beak, she looked a' great deal like 

 a robin tugging at a worm. After she had 

 flown I found she had been pecking at 



