April, 1S93.] 



AND OOLOGIST. 



SI 



prey has hidden, even lighting on the ground 

 to hunt for it. A. C. MnrcJiison. 



Further Notes on the Distribution of 

 the Long-eared Owl and Cooper's 

 Hawk in Illinois 



B. T. Gaitlt. No. 8. 



Transient. Have but one record for this 

 locality, August 22, 1890; open grove in 

 village. February 10, 1877, took one on 

 outskirts of Chicago, in oak grove. 



Cooper's Hawk. 



Summer resident ; not common. 



Have never noticed them before .•Xpril 15. 

 Equally abundant as B. borealis. 



Four or more pair nested in Glen Ellyn 

 in spring of 1891, when 2 sets of eggs were 

 taken, 1-2 and 2-4, both probably from same 

 birds. 



Eggs of set I quite freely marked, chiefly 

 at larger end, with spots of different shades 

 of brown and lavender. 



Set 2, one egg spotted, another slightly 

 marked with light brown, the remaining 2 

 of the normal bluish-white color. 



Nests found in rather open, second growth 

 timber, principally black oak, and in medi- 

 um-sized trees, about 25 feet from ground, 

 old Crows' nests being slightly remodeled for 

 the occasion. Eggs in both instances de- 

 posited on small pieces of bark, averaging i 

 inch by 2 inches, probably from dead limb 

 on same tree. 



Set 1-2 taken May 4, fresh ; while set 2-4, 

 taken May 17, was somewhat advanced. 

 Nests within a few rods of each other. 



A. C. Miirchiso)!. 



N. Vickary, Lynn, Mass., reports that a 

 Labrador Gyrfalcon was shot at Ipswich, 

 Mass., March 11, 1893 ; also that a Logger- 

 headed Shrike was brought in to him March 

 29, and a Mocking-llird on April 4. The 

 ]jarty who shot the Mocking-Bird reported 

 that there was a ]5air, but he failed to secure 

 but the one. 



Queer Occupant of a Goldfinch's 

 Nest. 



It was a bright winter morning, with the 

 thermometer dallying among the small fig- 

 ures, the fields white with their winter over- 

 coats and silence almost unbroken, not even 

 the chirp of a Snowbird to break the wintry 

 quiet, but as I passed into the street and 

 walked up the deserted road the depressing 

 stillness of nature was suddenly broken by 

 the lively chattering of a flock of Goldfinches 

 which sprang up from the roadside at my 

 approach, where they had been gathering a 

 breakfast scant and drj' from the tufts of 

 grass and weeds whose tops extended above 

 the snow banks that covered the ground. 

 There is a cheeriness and life about the con- 

 fused chattering of a flock of Goldfinches 

 that gives a charm to the bleak landscape, 

 though there is little in the note or the 

 winter garb of the bird to remind one of the 

 sweet song or the gaily painted songster that 

 scattered the down from the thistle head 

 last summer. 



With graceful evolutions and soft and 

 gentle mingling of happy voices, the little 

 flock gathered in a tree top by the roadside, 

 the very same tree where a pair of their 

 number during the heats of last summer 

 built themselves a nest and essayed to rear 

 a family. It was a broad branching oak and 

 one of its far-reaching arms extended quite 

 over the carriage track, and there among the 

 dense foliage they built the beautiful nest. 

 Travellers in their wagons could easily have 

 raised themselves up and looked into it, 

 situated as it was in full view of every passer, 

 but I doubt if any one beside myself ever 

 obser%'ed the dark spot among the foliage. 



As the birds gathered in the top of the 

 tree that winter's morning I saw in bold re- 

 lief against the bleak landscape that little 

 nest still securely held in its place, defying 

 the storms and gales of winter and ajipear- 

 ing as sound as when I first looked into it 

 in the heats of last July. The Goldfinch 



