44 



THE OOLOQIST 



King Rail. Further searcli led to the 

 discovery of a nearly completed nest 

 among the cat-tails. 



On May 29, I revisited the place 

 with the expectation of finding a set 

 of eggs. The nest was empty and had 

 been overflowed; but to my great sur- 

 prise I found another nest containing 

 thirteen eggs. This nest was well con- 

 cealed in a clump of coarse marsh 

 grass near the edge of the little marsh, 

 where the ground was wet though not 

 covered with water. The base of the 

 nest was made up of dead sedges but 

 the superstructure consisted chiefly, 

 and the lining entirely, of green sedges 

 or grasses. The eggs were far ad- 

 vanced in incubation; a circumstance 

 indicating that the nest contained eggs 

 at the time of my first visit and that 

 the empty nest found at that time was 

 a dummy or supernumerary nest. 



In order to photograph this "nest- 

 full" of eggs the vegetation was 

 pressed aside and the camera was set 

 up at the foot of the slight railroad 

 embankment. An attempt was made 

 to photograph the bird but I became 

 convinced that no amount of patience 

 would accomplish it without first get- 

 ting her accustomed to a dummy 

 camera. Although the nest was only 

 a few paces from the railroad rails, 

 whence the passing trains must have 

 presented a terrifying sight, yet this 

 bird found the camera and the man at 

 the end of its thread too dangerous to 

 contemplate. 



Near Elkhart, in the county adjoin- 

 ing Sangamon on the north, I had 

 noticed a small marshy creek and, 

 prompted by this new experience with 

 Rails, I made a special trip to investi- 

 gate it. The cat-tails along the border 

 of the stream were carefully explored 

 (on May 21st) and I found one nest, 

 only partially finished, which was ap- 

 parently the work of a King Rail. 



Alexander D. Du Bois, 

 April, 11, 1920. Chicago. 



JOHN LEWIS CHILDS 



A communication from W. Lee 

 Chambers of California, under date of 

 March 7th, advises us. 



"I was shocked today to read in 'The 

 Times' that my good friend, John L. 

 Childs, had died suddenly on his way 

 home. He was out to the house Sun- 

 day, Feb. 28th and started for home 

 the following Tuesday. He died just 

 before he reached home. We can 

 never tell who will be next " 



With the passing of Mr. Childs, 

 American oology loses one of its best 

 men and most ardent devotees. Be- 

 ginning about 1895 and for the follow 

 ten years there were few, if any, men 

 in North America who gave more at- 

 tention to amassing a representative 

 collection of North American Oology, 

 and a library covering the Birds of 

 North America. 



The corner stone of Mr. Child's col- 

 lection was Miss Gene Bell's collection 

 of Philadelphia, which was purchased 

 and upon which, up to that time, had 

 been spent probably as much money 

 as upon any collection in America. Mr. 

 Childs entered enthusiastically into en- 

 larging this collection with the view 

 of ultimately building up a complete 

 representation of the eggs of all 

 species and sub-species of North 

 American Birds included in the A. O. 

 U. list. For years he prosecuted this 

 work with energy and brought to it 

 the business acumen which had made 

 the John L. Childs seed and flower 

 business known from one end of the 

 land to the other. Being a man of very 

 abundant means Mr. Childs was not 

 handicapped in this undertaking, and 

 the result is that at the time of his 

 death, leaves what is known as one of 

 the most complete, if not in fact, the 

 most complete collection of this kind 

 in existence. 



It was not his purpose to build up a 

 large series, but to acquire one, two or 

 three typical sets of the eggs of each 



