ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 17-N0. II 



sticks, about twenty feet up. An eager 

 climb, without spurs, and I find that the 

 nest contains two twigs, freshly plucked, in 

 soft green leaf. Later discoveries prove 

 this to be a typical location and an aver- 

 age nest. 



"I thought we'd come out here this 

 afternoon," remarked my host as we gal- 

 loped homeward, at sundown, having dis- 

 covered five fresh but empty nests, "and 

 then go out to-monow to where the Kites 

 really breed. It is seven miles and more 

 from here." 



Now this was, I confess, a "stunner." 

 All along the trip, I had said to myself, 

 "Now if Mr. D. is busy, I'll just go out 

 alone among the timber, explore Col. 

 Goss' colony, and when I have secured, 

 say, ten sets, I'll go home." Work lay 

 before us, on the basis of a ranchman's 

 thorough knowledge of every square mile 

 of this portion of the watered and wooded 

 gypsum hills. Before my trip was ended 

 I said to myself, "What madness for a 

 tender-foot to think of coming out here 

 alone after Kites' eggs." 



"To-morrow" we explored all the 

 available territory inhabited by the Kites. 

 On the way out, riding up a steep cliff to 

 the edge of a crag honeycombed with 

 small caves, where surely vultures breed, 

 I was delighted to find that the lone tree 

 which formed the pinnacle of the crest, 

 and whereon a vulture sat, was a live red 

 cedar. " These canons were all heavily 

 fringed with them once," my friend ex- 

 plained. "When I was a trader here, in 

 the early days, cedar posts were legal 

 tender. I've had as high as fifty thousand 

 on hand at once. When the buffaloes 

 stampeded, the hunter used to cut posts. 

 I used to trade provisions for posts, the 

 posts for corn, and the corn for money." 



Riding on, we spent the day in explor- 

 ation. A gale of wind blew all day. The 

 Kites were settled, a pair here, a single 

 bird there, among the trees, to escape the 



blow; but they were very wild. Many 

 wing shots failing, I had to commit a delib- 

 erate murder to secure the one fine male 

 that was to supply my cabinet. 



Some ten or a dozen fresh nests were 

 found, and several old ones. The nestifig 

 was all of ten days late, and I have missed 

 the keen satisfaction which it would have 

 been to take from the nest with my own 

 hands an egg so rare as that of the Missis- 

 sippi Kite. 



But that day's adventure had its com- 

 pensations, though it ended in a seven 

 mile gallop home through driving rain. 

 Prominent among the satisfactions of the 

 day was the taking from a high red clay 

 bank, stratified with gypsum and bearing 

 several thousand nests of the Cliff Swallow, 

 distributed in colonies from top to bottom 

 of the cliff, several sets of eggs, and a 

 beautiful nest cemented to a plate of the 

 crystalline gypsum. And greater still 

 among satisfactions was that of bringing 

 these and other specimens safely home, 

 on horseback, by stage, by rail, all these 

 hundreds of miles. 



Although the Kites would not lay for 

 we, they did for my collector, who sent 

 me in August, nicely blown and safely 

 packed, a large series of eggs. Of the 

 nests, all but one were in elm trees, by 

 preference, evidently, in trees that were 

 ivy-grown. Nesting height, from fifteen 

 to forty feet. Locality, the remote, wild, 

 wooded canons. 



Desiring to reimburse myself, in part, 

 for expenses of collecting, I made a propo- 

 sition to an eastern dealer, who was kind 

 enough to offer me per egg just what I 

 pay my collector, and who added to his 

 offer this caution, "and they must not be 

 Marsh Hawks, either, at that price. You 

 probably know they can be substituted." 



Now this astonished me, although on 

 comparison of several non-typical Kite 

 eggs with Marsh Hawk's eggs of unusual 

 shape and color, I could detect a resem- 



