186 



THE OOLOGIST. 



It has been stated that a visit to the 

 nest of a Cooper's Hawk would cause 

 the parents to abandon it, however, I am 

 inclined to differ judging from a pair I 

 had an acquaintance with last spring. 

 On April 21st, while out collecting birds, 

 we met a farmer of whom we inquired 

 if he had seen any hawk nests. He re- 

 plied in the affirmative, and said that a 

 pair of "duck hawk" had taken up 

 their abode in a nearby woods, point- 

 ing out about where he supposed it 

 was. He said that but a couple of days 

 before, he had passed the tree, and that 

 the old ones flew around, saying some 

 very inpolite words (in hawk). We 

 made directly for the spot, and found 

 the nest in the crotch of a beech tree 

 33 feet from the ground, but the tree 

 was too hard to climb. On April 25th, 

 we returned with irons, and climbed to 

 the nest. It contained one egg which 

 was cold and dirty, and as no birds 

 were around I concluded that it was 

 the egg of a Red-shouldered hawk which 

 had deserted the nest on account of the 

 farmers interrupting it. However, I 

 took the egg home and upon washing 

 it, found it was the egg of a Cooper's 

 hawk. I blew it and found it fresh. 

 On April 28th, I again visited the nest 

 on which the old female was sitting, 

 but she flew in response to a tap on the 

 trunk of the tree. There was one egg 

 in the nest, which I took and replaced 

 it with that of a chicken. May 5th, I 

 returned to the neet and found two 

 more fresh eggs beside that of the hen. 

 I took these eggs home leaving one 

 more hen's egg in the nest. On May 

 19th, I returned to find one more hawk's 

 egg, it was highly incubated. 



You will probably be interested to 

 know what became of the chicken eggs. 

 What would the poor hawk do if after 

 setting three weeks, find that she had 

 only raised — her breakfast, but this 

 could not be, as the eggs were hard 

 boiled intended for my lunch, and upon 

 my last visit, I threw them from the 

 nest. 



Alex. W. Blain, Jr. 



* Read before Chapter 176 Detriot B. Agassiz 

 Association. Oct. 4, 1901. 



The Food Supply of the Brown Thrash- 

 er and Mocking- Bird. 

 By C. C. Purdum, M. D. 



The Brown Thrasher:— This bird 

 IS found most plentiful in the Carolin- 

 ian zone of the U. S., but is found 

 breeding from New England to the 

 Dakotas. Like the birds which we have 

 last considered, this bird rears two 

 broods in one season. Being more re- 

 tiring in its habits than the catbird, one 

 would naturally look to find the thrash- 

 er less destructive than the latter. As 

 a matter of fact it is, but there is no 

 great difference in the varieties of cul- 

 tivated fruit which it devours, although 

 the quantity is much less. 



Perhaps the variety of food taken by 

 this bird from the garden is grea'^er 

 than any heretofore considered by us, 

 consisting as it does of a rather diver- 

 sified list of fruit, viz., peaches, plums, 

 apples, pears, strawberries, black and 

 red raspberries, grapes and cherries; 

 all of which are marketable and a 

 great source of income to tbe farmer. 

 Naturally therefore the fruit grower, 

 observing these birds feeding in his 

 trees and shrubs, looks upon them with 

 no favorable eye, and contemplates 

 their destruction as a thing to be de- 

 sired. He should, however, look far- 

 ther than the loss of a few fine cherries 

 or grapes, and observe the bird closely, 

 when he would find that for each peck 

 at a grape or any of the other fruit, the 

 bird will eat a dozen or more noxious 

 insects, taking them as the body of the 

 meal and the fruit as a side dish. 



This paper on the food supply of the 

 Brown Thrasher, is based upon the re- 

 port of the examination of one hun- 

 dred and twenty-one stomachs, collect- 

 ed as far west as Kansas and covering 

 a range from Florida to Maine. This 

 investigation was conducted by the U. 

 S. Department of Agriculture during 

 the years of 1893 and 1894, and the re- 

 sult may be roughly estimated as fol- 

 lows: 



