December, 1S92.] 



AND OOLOGIST. 



1S5 



crushed all the eggs excepting four. As 

 near as could be ascertained, the set con- 

 sisted of fifteen eggs. Incubation postive- 

 ly not over one third advanced. Allow- 

 ing tw^enty days to be the period of incu- 

 bation, the chicks would not have left the 

 shells before October 6 at least. 



Benjannii Hoag. 

 Stej^hentown, New York. 



In Good Greenwood. — III. 



Like all hunters wlio have grown gray 

 in the good greenwood, there are some 

 little spots which are dear to my heart. 

 This is not always on account of any deed 

 of prowess or particular streak of good 

 luck that has happened them, but an un- 

 definable something makes them seem 

 particularly my own. There is Alligator 

 Head Pond, for instance. I first came to 

 It in the winter. Tliere had been a good 

 deal of rain, the pond was tipping full 

 away up among the bushes on the bank 

 and the water had the black-red, mysteri- 

 ous deep look of woodland ponds after a 

 rain. Not a ripple marred the surface. 

 A black Vulture on one dead stub and a 

 Kingfisher on another were all the signs 

 of life. I waited about an hour hoping 

 for some Ducks to come in, but I was dis- 

 appointed and went back to camp before 

 dark. All night long, as I smoked and 

 dozed over my fire, the little pond would 

 keep picturing itself to my mind's eye. 



The next time I went there was in the 

 spring. There had been a long drought, 

 and only a few little reeking pools were 

 left full of green slime and young Alliga- 

 tors. The stub — a dead cedar — where I 

 had seen the Kingfisher was covered with 

 Snowy Herons and I went home with 

 nine of them. That year I often visited 

 it, with varying luck. Sometimes it was 

 the Snowys that rewarded my patient 

 watching. Then it would be other Herons, 

 Teal, Wood Duck, a Rabbit or a Coon. 



Later in the season the great wood Ibis 

 congregated there in the afternoon, and I 

 spent many delightful hours watching 

 their uncouth gambols and studying posi- 

 tions for future taxidermal work. The 

 Gallinules and Rails also proved excellent 

 and instructive subjects for observation, 

 and so did a big old Alligator that took 

 his siesta of a hot day about twenty feet 

 in front of my favorite hiding spot. Once 

 I skulked round the back of the pond and 

 took a shot at a big Egret. As the gun 

 went off my Alligator rushed for the water, 

 knocked me and my gun both promiscu- 

 ously in with him and got off scot free. I 

 lemember the expression of his eyes as he 

 watched me afterwards while I was wip- 

 ing off the gun and scouping mud from 

 my own person. He really seemed to be 

 enjoying the joke he had played off on me 

 and I was so mad I would have killed him 

 if I could have found any shot suitable for 

 his tough hide. 



Another beautiful picture was furnished 

 me here the next winter on a deer hunt. 

 The pond was still dry and I had been 

 trailing slowly for about an hour when the 

 two or three big jumps that the buck made 

 from a slow track told me that he had 

 taken up his bed not far away. I had 

 been keeping the dogs in all the time and 

 they were very eager, so I sent them round 

 the far edge of the pond in charge of old 

 driver Joe and took my stand right at the 

 head. Soon they opened — first Dora, 

 then Damon and Cora, and down they 

 came with a rush — Jack, the bull pup, 

 close behind, and a pretty buck was close 

 on me before I saw him. I whooped and 

 turned him for a side shot, but he was in 

 the cover when the gun cried, and I could 

 not tell whether I had touched him until 

 the dogs had him down. Both his hind 

 legs were broken at the hip joint, but he 

 sat there with his back in a thick bush and 

 knocked the beagles about with all the 

 ease in the world. But little Jack was of 



