84 



THE OOLOGIST 



Blackbird? It is a very hardy bird, 

 and is at most times useful, and as 

 for eating a few kernels of grain, it 

 makes good by eating many harmful 

 beetles and insects and thus greatly 

 aids the farmer. But the farmer does 

 not think so, and why? Because he 

 only sees it eating a few kernels of 

 his grain at certain times, but does not 

 perceive that the bird also eats very 

 many harmful insects. Because of de- 

 stroying so many of these pests the 

 bird is justified in taking a few kernels 

 as a reward and should be protected 

 whenever possible. 



Wm. C. Marten. 

 Illinois. 



Miscellaneous Bird Notes From Phila- 

 delplnia and Vicinity. 



Winter records of the Red-headed 

 Woodpecker for the vicinity of Phila- 

 delphia, Pa., are of rare occurrence. 

 I have personally never observed it 

 after October in the fall, or before 

 April in the Spring, but my brother 

 George saw one on February 8, 1903, at 

 Sandiford, Philadelphia County, and 

 my cousin EUerslie W. Miller shot one 

 on March 14, 1905, at this locality. 

 These are my only winter records. 



The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is an- 

 other rare winter sojourner of the 

 Woodpecker tribe in this region, and 

 my only real winter record is of a 

 bird observed on December 3, 1903, at 

 Sandiford, by my brother George. I 

 have seen it several times, however, in 

 March, at different localities. 



On April 23, 1900, at Holmesburg, 

 Philadelphia County, Pa., I collected 

 a set of five Crow's eggs from a nest 

 45 feet up in a triple crotch of a big 

 willow on bank of a stream subjoin- 

 ing a woods. Nothing unusual about 

 the nest or eggs except the incubation. 

 Four eggs were practically infertile 

 and the fourth contained a living em- 

 bryo over two-thirds grown. Rather a 



remarkable condition for a set of eggs 

 in my experience. The reverse condi- 

 tions in a clutch is quite common with, 

 this species. What could have caused 

 the infertility of the four eggs? The 

 Crow was flushed from the nest. 



During my annual raids of Crow's 

 nests I have never found a set con- 

 taining seven eggs or young, but I have 

 seen clutches of this number that 

 were collected in Southern Pennsyl- 

 vania, so I still entertain hope of find- 

 ing this number in a nest. 



I have found many abnormally col- 

 ored sets of Crow's eggs but only one 

 runt has ever come my way. This set 

 I collected on April 9, 1903, at Hill- 

 side, Montgomery County, Pa., from a 

 nest about 40 feet up in the crotch of 

 a thin chestnut in a wood, a day when 

 Dick Harlow and I, by strenuous work, 

 collected a fine series of 75 eggs of 

 Corvus brachyrhynchos on the his- 

 toric hills of that county. The set con- 

 sists of six eggs; five are typical in 

 form, color and size (being, if any- 

 thing, a trifle over the normal size) 

 and the sixty is a decided runt. It is 

 almost globular in shape and no 

 larger than a Blue Jay's egg, which it 

 somewhat resembles in marking. 



Chapman (Bird-Life, p. 152) says: 

 "There are three birds who sing not 

 only through the heat of midsummer, 

 but are undaunted by the warmth of a 

 mid day sun. They are the Wood 

 Pewee, the Red-eyed Vireo, and the 

 Indigo Bird or Bunting." 



To this group of sutlry days' sing- 

 ers should be added the Swamp Spar- 

 row, whose monotonous song can be 

 heard on any hot day, at all hours on 

 the river meadows and marshes near 

 Philadelphia. It sings occasionally 

 during the hot summer nights and only 

 ceases its singing with the waring of 

 summer. It sings later in the season 

 than any of the above three species. 

 The Swamp Sparrow song is the only 



