ticient data to back them up. It is evident to all, that where a species has 

 as wide a breeding range as Cori'us americauiis, the number of eggs 

 in a set must naturally vary according to locality and environment. 

 Here Nature shows her wisdom, or rather the guiding hand of the Infinite 

 Creator is here most strikingly shown. In the extreme northern and north- 

 western breeding range of this species, where competition in the struggle 

 for proper and suitable food is freer, the birds are enabled to raise 

 a larger brood than those of the South, where competition is much greater. 

 Another condition exists in the North-east, which is scarcely less power- 

 ful than the foregoing — that of persecution. While the bird may be as 

 free from competition of its class as its Western brethren, the persecution 

 or competition with man exists in so great a degree as to reduce its feed- 

 ing ground materially, possibly one-half. Probably no fiercer warfare is 

 waged against this species any-where in the country than in New York 

 and New England. While the maximum number of eggs in a set is as 

 great as or greater than that of the Central and Western states, the av- 

 erage falls below the latter. It is extremely rare to find more than five 

 eggs in a set south of the 30th parallel of latitude. Out of 320 sets. 

 known to be complete, collected in the Humid Province, those taken 

 south of the 36th parallel, from the Carolinian and Austroriparian faunal 

 areas, 50 per cent, are in sets of five eggs each, no larger sets being re- 

 ported. In the Middle and Eastern states, 54 per cent, are in sets of five 

 or hx)\ir(>r. In the Western states (only those included in the Humid 

 Province are given), 73 per cent, are in sets of five or larger. The more 

 robust the bird, the greater the abundance of food and relative free- 

 ness from persistent persecution, are without doubt conducive to the 

 increase in the number of eggs in a set, as this species is not knov/n to 

 lay more than one clutch in a season, unless the first has been disturbed 

 or destroyed in some manner. 



The largest number of eggs in one nest has been reported from Iowa — 

 a "set " of eight eggs But the fact that four of these eggs were darker,, 

 larger, and further advanced in incubation than the remaining four, evi- 

 dently proves it to be a double set, although but one pair of birds was 

 observed about the nest. A number of sets of seven eggs are without 

 doubt double sets also. The difference in coloration and incubation 

 proving them to be such. That seven eggs are uof some times deposited 

 in a clutch by a single female, I am not prepared to assert ; but consider- 

 ing the abundance of the species, I do consider such sets extremely rare. 

 I have never found one, although I have looked into several hundred 

 nests the pasts ten years. Mr. C. W. Crandall, Woodside, Queen's 

 County, N. Y., has been more fortuate. In answer to an inquiry regard- 



