THE OOLOGIST. 



35 



L. WHITNEY WATKINS, B. S., 



Manchester, Mich. 



for then it is wlieii the birds arc in their 

 ruost beautiful plumage. p]very bird 

 killed during the lireeding season repre 

 sents two or more young left to starve 

 to death in the deserted nest. Some 

 species, like the Paroquet, have been 

 almost exterminated bj' these hunters. 

 Whole heronies have been depopulated, 

 and our woodlands robbed of many a 

 songster. This work should be stopped 

 by proper legislative enactments in the 

 various states, or else the day must 

 come when our forests are voiceless 

 and our fields are silent, when no min- 

 istrel attunes its song to the murmur of 

 the stream, and no Heron stands guard- 

 ian by the side of the meadow-girt pond. 

 No one is more careful than the gen- 

 uine ornithologist in sacrificing bird- 

 life. The true collector seldom takes 

 the life of a bird unless it is necessary 

 for the purposes of identification, nor 

 does he engage in wholesalenest rob- 

 bery, for every egg taken destroys in 



its germ so much of the life and music 

 of the field and the wood. Collections 

 should be made only for scientific pur- 

 poses and !• should be guided by no 

 mercenary or selfish; motive. Science 

 has measured, weighed, and described 

 the birds, their nests and eggs. Upon 

 these points there is but little more to 

 learn, and all true naturalists will pur- 

 sue their studies with a considerate 

 heart and sparing hand. 



Harky C. Lillie. 



Odd and Unusual Nesting Sites- 



BThiimbing over ,tlie pages of one. of 

 my journals, a book scribbled full of 

 bird lore, I notice an entry concerning 

 a queer bird's nest found a number of 

 years ago. The nest in question was 

 no other than thatof a Wren, a com- 

 mon^House Wren, but its- unusual site 

 was the feature that attracted my atten- 

 tion. An old, deserted shoe, lodged in 

 the branches of an apple tree, per- 

 chance by the hands of a thoughtless 

 urchin, became the home of this pair of 

 Wrens. I have seen their nests in all 

 manner of odd positions, a cofl'ee-pot, 

 paint-bucket,' tin-can, glass-jar, old 

 basket, rubber boot, waters pout, 

 brush-pile, in fact anything the build- 

 ers take a notion to. 



On the top of a deserted Jay's nest, 

 a pairj of robins built their nest and 

 reared their young, and also on the 

 top of a stump in an orchard another 

 pair built. A rail of a snake-fence is 

 sometimes used or a ledge under the 

 roof of a porch is often chosen. A 

 pair built their nest in the corner of a 

 wind -mi 11 frame. The nest rested part- 

 ly on a wire, the other end of which 

 was tied to the pumping-rod. At every 

 stroke the nest was rocked like a cradle, 

 but the birds seemed but little annoyed, 

 and succeeded in raising a brood of 

 healthy youngesters. 



Nests of the Brown Thrasher on the 



