THE OOLOGIST. 



Vol. 3, No 5. ALBION, N. Y., SEPT. TO NOV., 1886. > b-mon,„.v. 



) soc. Per Year. 



A Day With a Young Collector on 

 Long Island. 



Every Saturday last spring, when I was 

 at St. Paul's school, Garden City, my chum 

 and I were in the habit of going on a walk 

 for the purpose of collecting eggs, and usu- 

 alty had the most miserable luck. For in- 

 stjmce, once, after walking the whole morn- 

 ing, we came back with only two Red and 

 Buff-shouldered Blackbird's eggs. The last 

 day we were at school we determined to go 

 out in a new direction from the way we 

 usually went. After walking about tw^o 

 miles we came to a farm-house with a small 

 orchard attaclied- Going up to the nouse 

 we asked permission to walk through the 

 (we don't generally do this, but it wa.s so 

 near the house that we thought it best to), 

 and they gave it to us readily. We began 

 at once to look for nests, only finding a 

 few, wliich proved to be old ones. We 

 were about to go when I saw a Baltimore 

 Oriole, and looking around discovered its 

 nest in the top of a small pear tree. ^ly 

 ehum volunteered to climb for it. When 

 he got about half way up the old birds 

 commenced to halloo " bloody murder I" 

 and A\e felt badly to take their nest , 1 »ut we 

 could not help ourselves. My chum found 

 it rather hard work to get at the nest, for 

 the tree was small and bent under his 

 weight toward the top. He was afraid that 

 it would break ; however, he managed to 

 get it down. On looking in we .saw four 

 eggs of a light gray color', streaked and 

 blotched with dark purple or black, chief- 

 ly at the larger end. They were perfectly 

 fresh and were the first Oriole's eggs I had 

 found, for I had not been collecting long. 

 The nest was made of grass, woolen and 

 threads, was the shape of a bag, about six 

 inches long and larger at the bottom than 

 at the top where there was an opening for 

 the bird to ifo in. 



When the Oriole's nest was being climbed 

 for a pair of Kingbirds made such a noise 

 in tlie next tree that I thought they must 

 have a nest there, so I climbed into the tree 

 and found that my conjecture was right ; 

 there were three fresh eggs in it. 



After this we walked on till we came to 

 some woods. Entering them, we walked 

 aliout a mile before we found anything ex- 

 cept a Catbird's nest then I sat down and 

 took a rest while my chum walked on. I 

 soon heard him calling to me, so I got up 

 and ran to him and he showed me a nest in 

 a low bush with the bird sitting on it; when 

 we came near I saw that it was a Wood 

 Thrush, and it allowed us to get very close 

 before it left its nest, and then it did not 

 seem much fi'ightened. The eggs were 

 three in numl)er, of Robin egg blue and 

 slightly smaller than the eggs of that bird. 

 One of them was perfectly fresh, but the 

 other two were almost hatched, so that we 

 could not blow them till we got home. 



We continued our walk till we were out 

 of the woods, and after walking a short 

 distance we came in sight of the same cot- 

 tage where we found the Oriole's eggs. 

 This rather surprised uf , as we thought we 

 had come out on the other side of the 

 woods, l)ut instead of that we came out not 

 two hundred yards from the point we en- 

 tered, showing us that we had made a c(mi- 

 plete cii'cuit in the woods without our 

 knowing it. • 



On our way back a Country boy sto]tped 

 us and asked us what luck we had. He 

 said he knew where a Flicker's nest was, 

 and also the nest of a bird whose name he 

 did not know. When we came to it the 

 bird flew off so quickly that I could not see 

 plainly what it was, but I think that its 

 back was brown and its breast white, and 

 was about the size of a sparrow. The nest 

 was situated on the ground among a lot of 

 dried leaves ; it was about six inches high 



