66 



THE OOlX)GIST 



talking with tlie mountaineers I learn- 

 ed that these great Woodpeckers are 

 still quite plentiful in that region of 

 the mountains. Many huge old snags 

 showed former nesting holes of the 

 birds. In such a dense growth of tim- 

 ber it would certainly be a task to 

 find the Pileated's nest. 

 Waynesburg, Pa. 



S. S. Dickey. 



containing eggs and young of the own- 

 ers, an occurrence as rare in my ex- 

 perience, as punctured Cowbird's eggs. 

 Richard F. Miller. 



Punctured Cowbird's Eggs. 



In the April, 1912, OOLOGIST, page 

 261, I published an article on Punc- 

 tured Cowbird's Eggs, wherein I care- 

 lessly asserted that "during the many 

 years I have studied the birds I have 

 found but one or two punctured Cow- 

 birds eggs," but after carefully search- 

 ing my records of nests containing 

 Cowbirds eggs I find myself mistaken 

 in this belief as I have three other rec- 

 ords of punctured eggs. These rec- 

 ords I overlooked when I hastily 

 searched my note-books for data upon 

 this subject. 



On July S, 1908, at Bustleton, Phila- 

 delphia County, Pennsylvania, I found 

 a rotten, punctured Cowbird's egg in 

 an empty Indigo Bunting's nest. On 

 June 2, 1910, at Fox Chase, this Coun- 

 ty, I examined a deserted Cardinal's 

 nest containing a punctured Lazy^- 

 bird's egg. And the third punctured 

 egg of Molothrus I found on May 29, 

 1905, at Torresdale, this county, also 

 in a Cardinal's nest, which held one 

 egg of the owner with the incubation 

 fresh. 



In the first two cases the Cowbird 

 presumably deposited her unwelcome 

 eggs in the empty nests and the own- 

 ers promptly and quite rightly desert- 

 ed them after breaking the eggs un- 

 doubtedly by jabbing their bills 

 through the shells. 



Let's hear from others upon the sub- 

 ject. In another paper I shall write 

 about infertile Cowbird's eggs in nests 



Late. 



Isaac E. Hess of Philo, Illinois, re- 

 ports birds very slow about arriving 

 this Spring. "My winter list since 

 January 1, numbers only twenty-six 

 species. Everything about two weeks 

 late here." 



We note the same condition about 

 Lacon. 



Nesting of the White-Breasted Nut- 

 hatch in Central Pennsylvania. 



(Sitta Carolinensis carolinensis). 



About the village of State College, 

 which lies in the middle part of Cen- 

 tre County, Pa., small tracts of decid- 

 uous woods are to be found on slop- 

 ing banks and the tops of low rolling 

 hills. These clumps of woodland seem 

 to favorably attract the White-breast- 

 ed Nuthatch. In this region I saw 

 more of these birds than have come 

 under my observation elsewhere. 



It was my good fortune to be able 

 to spend some sl)are time with these 

 Nuthatches during the nesting season 

 of 1913. On the afternoon of April 22, 

 accompanied by a friend, I went to a 

 woods a short distance back of the 

 village. Here I had heard the Nut- 

 hatches utter their peculiar nasal 

 "Zquack" as I walked through the 

 woods at an earlier date. When we 

 arrived at the woodland no Nuthatches 

 were to be found, but we seated our- 

 selves on a log and proceeded to watch 

 for them. After waiting here a half 

 hour we detected the faint note of a 

 Nuthatch which seemed to come from 

 the more distant part of the grove. 

 We at once hurried in that direction 

 and soon located the male bird. He 

 flitted about the trunks of small q/aks 

 busily engaged in procuring insect 



