November 1891.] 



AND OOLOGIST. 



169 



Mockingbird in Northwest Iowa. 



My attention was called to a bird's loud and 

 peculiar sin<;ing from the top of a chimney 

 as I was noino; to my place of business last 

 spring, and which proved to be, on investiga- 

 tion, a Mockingbird. I walclied the bird and 

 soon found where its mate was building a 

 nest. In the yard where the house stood 

 were twii fir trees, and in the smaller of the 

 two was where the nest was located. It did 

 not differ from the ordinary nests of the 

 Mockingliird. was about four feet from the 

 ground, and tree not ovei' thirty feet from side- 

 walk. Here the mother bird laid her eggs 

 and liatclied four young birds which were 

 just as bad looking as any young i)ird. These 

 they carefully raised and guarded till they were 

 full grown, or very nearly so, when all at once 

 I missed them, and only occasionally did I 

 see or hear them for some time when I 

 again saw some young birds, a second hatch, 

 which stayed till near maturity, when they 

 all <lisappeared. I was suiprised to find them 

 breeding so far north as the northwest part of 

 Iowa. I should like to Jiear from others in 

 regard to this so we may be able to get the 

 breeding range located as near as possible. 



A. I. Johnson. 

 Hull. Sinux Co., la. 



Across the Lake of Bay St. Louis, 

 Miss. 



Early in the morning of September 9. 1890, a 

 small skiff left the east bank of Bayou Glaire, 

 about a mile from its mouth, and started down 

 the bayou bound for the river .Jordan and the 

 lake. The said skiff contained ihree individ- 

 uals, viz.: myself, my host, Mr. 13., who 

 acted as captain, and a little colored boy 

 who acted as crew and answered to the name 

 of Fip. .\fter rowing down the bayou to its 

 mouth in sliort order, about half an hour 

 was spent in ijunching our way through the 

 lous inside the boom, and I don't think we 

 blessed the owner of tbit saw-mill much while 

 shoving his logs around. 



Once through the boom we were out of the 

 bayou and in the .Jordan; a pixll of another 

 mile or so and we crosseil the bar and entered 

 the beautiful lake, and away oft' in the distance 

 we could see immense schools of fish jumping, 

 whiih mv fiiend pronounced mullets, but 

 afterwards said they were " those old sar- 

 dines." A few Gulls sat on some dead l>ushes 

 sticking up above water and a few yellow 

 butterrties flitted aimlessly over the lake. 



It was now getting quite warm but we had 

 yet some eight miles or so of rowing before 

 us, and it grew pretty hot before we got to 

 our destination. However we got there at 

 last, and landed ou the shell beach in safety. 

 Right before us, but six miles away I suppose, 

 possibly more, was the railroad bridge across 

 the mouth of the lake, with a train just cross- 

 ing it, and behind us was a grove of live oaks, 

 pecans and other trees, surrounding a large, 

 well-built bvit uninhabited house which we 

 had planned to camp in. 



We lauded, stowed our traps away in the 

 old house, and shouldering our guns set forth, 

 after sampling the water of a famous spring 

 near by. We tramped through a piece of 

 woods, then across an old field, where I shot 

 at a Sparrow Hawk, but missed him, and then 

 we went in an old scuppernry vineyard, 

 which, to say the least, w.as a caution. The 

 old grape arbors were half standing, half 

 fallen, the vines grew over everything and a 

 dense growth of a shrub called water myrtle 

 filled up whatever room there was to spare, 

 making one of the densest thickets I ever 

 struck. It had one alleviating feature, how- 

 ever; there were very few briars. 



After crawling and creeping through this 

 thicket and arousing the suspicions of a stray 

 Towhee and a few White-eyed Vireos my 

 friend called out to me that he had found a 

 rat's nest. I hurried to him and he pointed 

 out an immense accumulation of sticks, larger 

 than any squirrel's nest, and measuring 

 about three feet in diameter each way. This 

 was placed in the tangled grape vines, about 

 seven feet high, and it wasn't till we punched 

 the rats out of the nest and shot them that 1 

 fully believed it was a bona fide rat's nest. 

 The rats were large, gray ones with the feet 

 and under parts white and rather short tails; 

 in fact they were wood rats of the genus 

 Neotonia, but I don't know whether they 

 were the common eastern form or not. I 

 hope they will prove something fresh. 



We got three rats (adults) and three baby 

 rats out of this nest. Shortly after we found 

 anol her, this time on the ground and got one 

 more rat, then another in the vines again, 

 the biggest of the lot, about four by three feet 

 in dimensions, and got more rats, then some 

 empty nests and then we started back and 

 found another tangled thicket and more rats' 

 nests. The first one produced a big rat, the 

 second yielded nothing at first but on more 

 vigorous punching something came out that I 

 at first thought was the most tremendous rat 



