January, 1892.] 



AND OOLOGIST. 



again when the correlative meteoi'ological con- 

 ditions regain prominence, but comparison 

 will give different results. Although the se- 

 quence of cold and warm, windy and moderate, 

 and fair and stormy weather remains the 

 same, the periods of abundance of birds will 

 now be on the days of cold, north wind and 

 fair weather, or the reverse of spring-time, 

 wlien the warmer days and favorable winds 

 were incentives for the birds to push north- 

 ward on their journey, while in the fall the 

 cold, north winds act in the same way, the 

 direction being reversed. 



And so the migration passes, and autumn 

 ages into winter, and the birds become scarcer 

 and their fluctuations less prominent, though 

 never ebbing entirely away. 



In Massachusetts the east and northeast 

 winds of autumn are cold and promote migra- 

 tion, but in winter they are warmer than the 

 west and northwest gales, so that at that 

 season birds are sometimes most noticeable 

 during easterly weather. 



Harry Gordon White. 



A Rainy Day in the Woods. 



Saturday, December 26, 1801, we shoul- 

 dered our guns and pocketed our note-books, 

 and started off for a tramp through the woods 

 to see what we could collect and note in the 

 bird line. By we I mean my cousin Frank 

 and myself. 



It was cloudy and rather dark and rainy, 

 just the day one would expect to see Owls and 

 such, and therefore we concluded to go first to 

 a strip of woods called Ober's, and then 

 through a large, dark woods and swamp called 

 the Park. Birds (as usual here) were scarce, 

 except, of course, the usual amount of Crows 

 and Chickadees. By the way, if it were not 

 for the latter the woods in winter would seem 

 very lonesome to me. They always seem so 

 .sociable, and welcome you to the woods at all 

 seasons. 



We had been walking on the road for 

 awhile when I happened to glance into the 

 woods, and my eye caught siglit of a small 

 object on a pine tree, which looked some like 

 a bird but more like a pine knot. I kept my 

 eyes on it, however, and thought I saw it 

 move. We went closer and found, sure 

 enougii, it was a bird, and one we had been 

 looking for, a Saw-whet Owl. He seemed very 



tame, so I thought we might capture him 

 without shooting. First I tried walking slowly 

 around behind him with a long pole I had cut 

 to hit him with. As fast as I walked he would 

 turn his head until it got around exactly the 

 the opposite way from what it should be. 

 I thought then of the piece I read in the 

 O. & O. about walking around and around an 

 owl until he twisted his neck off. But I found 

 this was not that kind of an Owl, for just then, 

 almost too quick for me to see him, he turned 

 his head way around the other way. Finding 

 I could not get <iut of his sight, to approach, I 

 got my cousin to go around in front of him 

 and execute a war-dance to attract his atten- 

 tion, then I walked carefully up behind and 

 tapped bim (the Owl) on the head, and in a 

 minute more he was in my hands, looking sur- 

 prised and shocked at such treatment. We 

 thought of keeping him alive at first, but 

 finding he was going to be troublesome we 

 decided it would be better to carry him home 

 in a cone. 



The next birds noted were Golden-crowned 

 Kinglets, in a flock of six or eight, of which 

 we captured two. Soon after this we noted a 

 large flock of Juncos and also a flock of Red- 

 polls. We captured one from the former and 

 none from latter flock. In coming back 

 through the woods we started one Eufled 

 Grouse wliich I fired at but failed to get. 



In the course of the day we overturned an 

 old stump and in it there was a large butterfly, 

 which when released seemed to be as lively as 

 though it were the middle of summer. Is this 

 not an unusual occurrence ? I always thought 

 they died in the fall.* 



We spent the rest of the day and evening in 

 my workshop, mounting our specimens. 



Birds have been very scarce here this fall 

 and winter so far. We saw more on this trip 

 than I have seen all the rest of the winter put 

 together; and what we thought would Le 

 rather a dreary, wet trip turned out to be a 

 very pleasant one, in spite of cloudiness and 

 occasional showers. As I write this the Saw- 

 whet stands on the mantel, all wound with 

 string, staring at me as though he knew just 

 what I was writing about him. 



C. E. Broxon. 

 Beverly, Mass. 



* Not at all an unusual occurrence. The family 

 Vanessa often hibernate in stone heaps and exposed 

 buildings, and the first butterflies of the spring are 

 these insects, which have been warmed by the approach 

 of the sun.— Ed. 



