72 Proceedings of the 



stood. This she repeated several times but at last gave 

 up the attempt to lead me away and sought a position 

 on a nearby rise of ground from which she called 

 anxiously. At the beginning of her maneuvers I dis- 

 covered one of the chicks at my feet, but further search 

 proved to be useless, and not another one could I find, so 

 well were they protected by their color and markings 

 and so quiet did they remain. The chick that I found 

 was in nestling down and resembled very much the 

 downy young of the Prairie Chicken, although even at 

 this age there was a difference in the amount of feather- 

 ing on the tarsi, which character is so marked in the 

 adults. 



36. Zcnaidura macroura carolinensis- (Linnaeus) — Mourning 



Dove. 

 The dove is rather abundant on the Reserve, as it is 

 elsewhere in the state, and is found everywhere from the 

 underbrush along the river to the open hills. When 

 nesting, it chooses the latter situation almost exclusively 

 and constructs a twig-lined hollow on the ground in the 

 shelter of a clump of bunch-grass or perhaps beneath 

 a pine tree if it happens to be in a planted portion of the 

 Reserve. The birds can be seen in the early morning com- 

 ing to the river valley from the hills and returning again 

 in the evening, since none of them, apparently, remain in 

 the valley over night. Some of the nests discovered were 

 fully a mile or more from the wooded river bottom, and 

 none at all were found closer than the first adjoining 

 hillside. 



37. Cathartes aura septentrionaUs Wied — Turkey Vulture. 



At intervals throughout the summer of 1912, a buzzard 

 could be seen sailing in broad circles high overhead on 

 widespread, motionless wings. Numerous times a pair of 

 them would be seen together and once I saw three. 

 Whether or not the birds which I noted on the Dismal 

 river were the same individuals as those which appeared 

 from time to time in the other valley I cannot positively 

 say, but I suspect such was the case since in the wide 

 expanse of territory over which a buzzard ranges the 

 few miles which separate the two streams would be in- 

 considerable. Probably the pair, or possibly two pairs, 

 nested in the vicinity of the former stream. 



