32 



THE OOLOGIST. 



the ranger's hei'ds; where once their 

 mournful love-notes murmured on the 

 breeze, now the school-bell's peal or the 

 whistle's clarion reverberates in the air. 

 These changes alone have decimated 

 the numbers of the Passenger Pigeons, 

 as draining the swamps will drive to 

 other spots the Heron or the Egret, or 

 felling the forest will destroy the home 

 of the woodland songsters. These are 

 the inexorable demands of civilization, 

 man's pleasure and man's comfort are 

 paramount. 



What mishaps and calamities would 

 be revealed in the chronicles of a single 

 nesting season if the same were in pi'int. 

 The nest of this Prothonotary Warbler, 

 built too low in the stub, is over-flooded 

 and the eggs destroyed; the Black Tern 

 building by the side of the neighboring 

 pond has its young swept away by the 

 flood. The Blue Jay skulks through 

 the trees and, in the absence of the 

 parent birds, devours the contents of 

 the nests it finds. A skunk, squirrel, 

 weasel, or darkest tragedy of all, a 

 snake, searching for the dainties the 

 nests afford, discovers the secreted 

 treasures and feasts upon them; or 

 perhaps that mid-night marauder, the 

 owl, snatches the parent bird from the 

 nest, or devours the eggs or young. 



Has any one ever seen a Blue Jay 

 robbing the nest of another Jay? Al- 

 though I have never witnessed such an 

 act, yet I will venture to say that there 

 is no honor among thieves even among 

 bird-kind, that the Jay will rob the nest 

 of its fellow just as well as that of the 

 Robin or the Thrush. 



Many species of birds when their nests 

 are robbed will endeavor to rear a 

 second brood, but their time is limited 

 to the few short months of spi'ing and 

 summer. The Chimney Swift, a bird 

 so devoted to its youug that it will da-sh 

 into a blazing building where its nest is 

 placed and perish with its offspring, in 

 response to that mysterious instinct 

 which impels migration of birds, will 



abandon its half-fledged young to de- 

 part for its southern home when the 

 time for migration arrives. 



To me it seems that the safest-place 

 for a nest would be whei'e the Bobolink 

 or Meadow-lark builds, in the broad 

 fields where neither bush nor weed nor 

 other growthjunlike the general mass 

 could mark the site, where all is uni- 

 form and monotonous, where the only 

 concealment is the concealment the 

 great aft'ords the little, as the desert 

 hides the pebble. Let the simple struc- 

 ture be placed in the midst of this vast- 

 ness and harmonize in color with the 

 surroundings and chances of detection 

 are very slight. The trees are searched 

 by rats, weasels, squirrels, jays, crows, 

 hawks and owls, and other predaceous 

 birds and animals In the field most of 

 these dangers would be avoided. An 

 occasional skunk or squirrel, prowling 

 about in the grass could possibly find 

 the nest, or perhaps some sharp-eyed 

 urchin, whose aimless rambles would 

 lead him across the nest, would see the 

 silent brown bird slip from her nest, 

 but all in all the chances of the nest be- 

 ing discovered by an enemy are small. 

 The Larks of our western plains main- 

 tain their numbers, while the Bobolinks 

 of the north, although multitudes are 

 killed during their migrations, prosper 

 and hold their own, and their sweet 

 music does not diminish in our northern 

 meadows. Yet many of these nests are 

 destroyed by the cattle trampling upon 

 them as they feed on the grass among 

 which the nests are placeed, or the mow- . 

 ers may come along earlier than the 

 parent birds anticipated and wreck the 

 humble household. 



The Pewee and the Chimney Swift 

 are subject to peculiar dangers. Their 

 nests being fastened to the side of a 

 wall or chimney when wet by the rains 

 loose their adhesive qualities and are 

 dashed to the ground below destroying 

 the eggs or young. 

 Many of the birds which secret their 



