February, 1892. J 



AND OOLOGIST. 



19 



April 22. Found two Crows' nests near 

 Windsor, Ont. They were situated nearer the 

 ground than any found during the last two 

 seasons; also a nest of the Red-shouldered 

 Hawk containing three highly colored eggs. 

 The bird is not very particular in his choice of 

 a nesting tree, especially if it be in thick 

 woods. This nest was placed in the thickest 

 r»ortion of a scrub oak forest and about eight. 

 een feet from the ground. He is less daring 

 as a robber of the poultry yard than most large 

 Hawks, and I have often seen him sail serenely 

 over a number of chickens in an open field, 

 without apparently noticing them, and of the 

 stomachs of five specimens shot here not one 

 contained fowl of any description. It seems 

 to me his tlight is less sluggish and more 

 graceful tlian the Hed-tail. 



April 80. Two friends and myself went col- 

 lecting north of the city. The first nest taken 

 was one of the Robin containing four fresh 

 eggs. Near it we secured another set of three. 

 Walked about a mile farther and found a 

 I'ewee's nest with one egg in it; also (in a 

 large woods) four young Crows and one egg, 

 out of wliich another tiny Crow was fast 

 making his exit. 



May 2. Day bright and warm ; not a cloud 

 obscures the sky. Reminds me very forcibly 

 of the 10th of March two years ago. It was 

 one of those clear, bracing spring days wiien 

 nature seems to have at last slipped from the 

 icy embrace of grim old winter and extended 

 a friendly hand to warm, showery April; when 

 the Bluebird can be heard twittering merrily 

 from the fence-post, and the Song Sparrow 

 mounts a convenient brush-pile and pours 

 forth his joyful song of welcome. I could 

 not resist the temptation of spending such a 

 day In the woods, so with note-book and shot 

 gun I started out, promising to secure a few 

 specimens for a friend. Bluebirds and 



Meadow Larks were abundant. As I sat in the 

 corner of an old snake fence, enjoying every- 

 thing in general and beating a tattoo with my 

 feet, my attention was directed upwards by 

 the screams of a Red-shouldered Hawk. A 

 small army of these birds were sailing about 

 most majestically. Suddenly one (doubtless 

 a scout, sent out to reconnoitre) descended 

 Tintil he was on a level with the tree tops, then, 

 apparently satisfied, amended in a spiral 

 manner and S(.)on joined the others. I pro- 

 ceeded on my way and pushed into a thicket 

 of dwarf oaks. A Great Horned Owl fiew by 

 quite close to me and lit on a tree some dis- 

 tance ahead. The light, downy nature of his 



plumage made his progress through the air so 

 noiseless that, were it not for the shadow his 

 form cast on the ground and the screams of 

 several pursuing Blue Jays, I would not have 

 seen him. The Jays attacked his Owlship 

 on all sides, screaming furiously, and seemed 

 in no way to relish the intrusion of the twi- 

 light king into their society. An Owl on the 

 wing reminds one of a bunch of down con- 

 veyed through the air by the wind. Found a 

 Long-eared Owl's nest situated not five feet 

 from the ground. 



Last year about the middle of May I was 

 passing through a swampy woods of second 

 growth timber when I came unexpectedly upon 

 a nest placed on the top of an oak stump ten 

 feet from the ground, and surrounded with a 

 luxuriant growth of wild grape-vines, to which 

 a bunch of down clung here and there and all 

 over the nest. "An Owl's nest!" I exclaimed, 

 and hardly were the words out of my mouth 

 when a bird left it, flew about a hundred feet 

 and uttered the barking scream of the Long- 

 eared Owl. The nest was rather difficult to 

 get at, owing to the thickly interwoven grape- 

 vinos, but my labor was rewarded by the sight 

 of four eggs and one Owlet which had just 

 come into this cruel, deceitful world of ours. 

 In going and coming from collecting tramps 

 I often stopped to have a look at my four tiny 

 Raptores, that sat up so awkwardly in the nest 

 and took bits of meat from my fingers, until it 

 seemed as though their little crops would bui st, 

 and the mother, at first wild and wary, 

 o-radually became bolder, until at last she 

 would sit on a bough not ten feet from my 

 head and watch proceedings with evident 

 interest and without showing any signs of 

 uneasiness. Some time after they left the nest 

 I found them bunched together in a tamarack 

 tree, by the excrement on the ground beneath, 

 but they had lost all their formei- friendliness, 

 and scatteied in different directions when I 

 attempted to climb the tree; indeed, they were 

 more suspicious than their parents, but this 

 may have been owing to the anxiety of the 

 latter for tlieir safety. But to return. 



I emerged upon a road, and follovving it for 

 a mile or more cut across the fields, bound for 

 the metropolis of the Evening Grosbeak, which 

 is a piece of timber covering several acres of 

 o-round, for the most part high and covered 

 with red oak. This is tlie only wood around 

 herein which the Grosbeak is found in plenty. 

 As I approached it from the east the white 

 trunks of the birch attracted my attention 

 above their surrounding neighbors, and the 



