172 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Yol. 14-^0. 11 



great pain. Several times he turned nearly 

 over in futile endeavor to reach his strangler 

 with his sharp talons, but the snake had too 

 good a position to relax one iota of the advan- 

 tage. So as the great bird's strength gave 

 out the two drifted fiutteringly back to the 

 earth. All this while the female has hovered 

 close to her mate screaming and trying to 

 reach the racer, but so deeply was the latter 

 bedded in the eagle's feathers that it was 

 impossible. As soon as the male had fallen, 

 liowever, his mate alighted close by, and now 

 had the racer been disposed he might have 

 escaped. But flushed with his triumph he 

 still clung to the male bird's neck, threatening 

 the frantic mate with glittering eyes and 

 swiftly darting tongue. The female spent no 

 time in bringing matters to an issue. With 

 the peculiar waddle of these birds when on 

 foot she boldly advanced, holding her left 

 wing out as a shield. The snake drew his 

 head back and waited for the opportunity to 

 seize the female as he had her mate. That 

 chance never came. A sudden rush and out of 

 the dust rolled the racer's head and the upper 

 part of the body, cut squarely in two by one 

 snap of those mighty mandibles. I rode closer 

 and saw the female busily cutting the rest of 

 the body from her mate's neck. Getting too 

 close, the great bird rose in the air and attack- 

 ing my horse and self I was obliged to kill 

 her. The male bird measured nine feet and 

 eleven inches from tip to tip extended 

 wings, and the female % of an inch more. As 

 near as I covdd make the length of the racer, 

 he was eight feet six, and so tightly had he 

 wound himself about the male bird's neck that 

 two great purple ridges stood up fully an inch, 

 like a "gallus" collar, where he griped. I 

 was obliged to cut each coil twice, for the 

 muscle held tense, in order to remove him 

 from the eagle's neck. Altogether it was a 

 strange fight, and the generalship displayed 

 by that red racer in that battle, has given me 

 a profound respect for his family that I never 

 had before, but shall ever retain. Honda. 



An Albino Messenger. 



Gambel's Sparrow {Zonotrlchia gamheli), one 

 of our first forerunners of the fall migrations 

 like a snowflake from the far north, was 

 brought me by a neighbor's boy, who had shot 

 it from a flock of House Finches (C frontalis) 

 and Western Lark Sparrows (C. grammaais 

 strtfiatHs), feeding among the dry mustard. 



He thought it was a lohite canary^ and my flrst 

 impression was the same until a closer examin- 

 ation showed it to be a sparrow, and a hard 

 one to determine. I will try to give as clear a 

 description of this white albino sparrow as 

 possible. 



The head and neck are pure white; back, 

 rump and wings have a sulphur wash on the 

 edge of the feathers, giving one an impression 

 of its being a white canary; two of the tail 

 feathers on each side of the tail are the natural 

 color of fiambel's Sparrow; one side of the 

 vent or under tail coverts are buff, also several 

 feathers on the sides of the body, and what 

 seems very odd is, that a number of the under 

 feathers of the side are smoky or sooty black 

 at the base; this is only in one place. This is 

 not the case in any of the Gambel's Sparrows 

 I have put up in ten years' collecting, ap- 

 proaching melanism ; there is one dark fcatlier 

 on the rump and shoulder. The feet and legs 

 are pale straw color, while the bill is chrome 

 yellow, losing its color as the specimen dries. 

 The eyes were jiinkish gray, and on skinning 

 the bird I found the skin of the eye ball to be 

 grayish-white, not dark slate as in most small 

 birds. The skin was wholly white. This fe- 

 male sparrow was very fat, and seemed in no 

 way diseased, showing in this case albinism 

 was not from the cause of any disease or weak- 

 ness of the boily. \V. Otto Emerson. 



Hay wards, Cal., Oct. 2, 1889. 



Seven Eggs of the Robin in One 

 Nest. 



On July 5, 1880, seven eggs of the Robin 

 (Menda migratoria) were found in one nest in 

 Montgomery County, Penn. The bird was 

 sitting, and all seven of the eggs were equally 

 incubated. Four of them are smaller than the 

 normal size, and of a darker color than usual, 

 while the other three are like ordinary eggs of 

 this bird. The difference is so perceptible 

 that they can be readily separated, and would 

 seem to indicate that two birds had laid in the 

 same nest. 



A very odd runt set of three eggs of the 

 Robin were also taken in the same" locality 

 on May 19, 1889. They were fresh, and the 

 parent bird was sitting on the nest. Singu- 

 larly enough they contained yolks, for their 

 size is so diminutive that I did not expect to 

 find any in them. They measure: .78x.65; 

 .80X.67; .8r)x.09. J. P. K. 



