178 



THE OOLOQI8T 



SNOW AND EGGS 



Raymond Fuller, White Plains, N. Y. 

 It is not generally realized by those 

 who have not made wild birds an act- 

 ive hobby of theirs how early some of 

 them lay eggs. The few following in- 

 stances of snow-covered birds' nests 

 which have come under my personal 

 observation may be put completely in 

 the shade by Canadian naturalists; but 

 for New York state the species men- 

 tioned maj^ be fairly representative of 

 the total reasonable probabilities. 



In 1906 I found a typical thorn-apple 

 (ha"w) nest of the white-rumped shrike 

 on April 9, whose six exquisite eggs 

 were cozily cottoned in a light fall of 

 snow coming the night before. The 

 parents were anxiously about, and 

 three days later Mother Shrike was 

 seen brooding her ciiarges as though 

 nothing had interrupted. 



A great horned owi eerie to which I 

 laboriously scaled several Februaries 

 ago could truthfully be said to have 

 had its two white billiard-ball eggs 

 resting upon a hard coating of ice 

 which had formed beneath the sitting 

 bird's body. It is a mystery how most 

 of these owls' eggs are prevented from 

 freezing — the enforced supposition is 

 that from the moment of laying they 

 are never deserted a minute; though 

 it is well known that both parents 

 brood them by turns. Below-zero 

 weather is usual for the incubation 

 period of the great horned owl; sleet 

 storms and heavy falls of snow com- 

 mon occurrences. 



The only woodcock's (Philohela 

 minor) nest I ever discovered was 

 mantled with a thin feathering of 

 March snow, but two of the expected 

 four eggs having been laid. This 

 plover nests very often in mid-March, 

 and the sitting mother's back must not 

 infrequently be whitened. 



A hole in a tall fence post that 

 cihaticed unfortunately to face the 



northwest came in for a generous fill- 

 ing of flaky snow one April within my 

 memory. I knew that blue birds had 

 laid eggs already in the cavity, so in- 

 vestigated. Sure enough, the pale blue 

 jewels were completely buried, the 

 nest was half full. The parents left 

 in despair, for it was sevral days be- 

 fore the weather moderated sufficient- 

 ly to have melted the snow inside the 

 post. 



Twice I have climbed to red- 

 shouldered hawks' platforms following 

 April blizzards, to find the nest fringed 

 with snow but the eggs sheltered by 

 the sitting parent were dry and warm_ 

 April 16, 1907, however, a domicile in 

 a small beech, which held one hand- 

 some rufous-blotched egg, had received 

 no maternal protection from the "quick 

 change in the weather," and so tni" 

 egg was as cold an object as one would 

 expect to dig out of a half inch of pre- 

 serving snow. I have found it a well- 

 established red-shouldered custom to 

 sit on the nest very closely and brave- 

 ly during damp drizzly days; while on 

 warm ones they will much more read- 

 ily fly when the tree trunk is struck. 

 But until the full set is laid tney ap- 

 pear to have slight regard for the frac- 

 tional part — hence the snow and rain 

 which descend on partial clutches. 



What I regard as a record for north- 

 ern New York is the finding of a prairie 

 horned lark's nest holding four eggs 

 upon March 29. Although the nest 

 site (the ground in a pasture) was 

 fairly dry, remnants of disappearing 

 snowdrifts lay all around and pasture 

 hollows were full of slushy ice. This 

 may be a common surrounding for 

 Alaska or Athabascan birds, but t 

 doubt if any other United States bird 

 ever builds next door to melting drifts 

 south of the St- Lawrence. 



