THE OOLOGIST. 



183 



H M., Hamilton, Ont. — Cannot your 

 egg of a light pea-green, speckled with, 

 black, cinnamon, and lavender shell- 

 markings, measuring about .80 x .55, be 

 an egg c)f the Cedar Wa.wving? It is 

 difficult to tell Avithout au}" description 

 of nest or bird. 



[Note: — We are behind with our 

 queries. The few queries remaining 

 unanswered as we go to press will be 

 answered by mail or else in October 



OOLOGIST. 



Lost Opportunities. 



Of all the amateur sports ;ind pas- 

 times I have had the pleasure of parti- 

 cipating in, I find photography one of 

 the most interesting and instructive, 

 and as an amateur naturalist, I have 

 spent some of the most delightful hours 

 of my life Avith a camera. When I go 

 to the woods or visit the rivers and 

 marshes, the camera is now my con- 

 stant companion, for I find in it far 

 more pleasure than the gun can afford. 



Nearly every season when the rivers 

 and lakes get their first glas.sy coat and 

 the cold blasts of approaching winter 

 sweep across our prairies, the Geese, 

 apparently surprised at the sudden 

 change, congregate in vast flocks and 

 depart southward, and at such times I 

 have seen neai'ly a thousand in a single 

 fiock. Such a sight would make a 

 grand picture which sportsmen as well 

 as naturalists could not help admiring. 

 Ducks Avhicli have tarried too long 

 often get caught by a cold wave and 

 can be found trying to keep the ice 

 from closing in on them by constant 

 swimming about its edge, and at such 

 times are less inclined to fiy, allowing 

 a person to get near enough to use a 

 detective camera on them. 



During a duck-hunt at one of the 

 most pleasant lakes in this locality, in 

 the fall of 1837, I had the pleasure of 

 surprising a small fiock of White Peli- 

 cans as they were feeding among the 

 sedges which were growing in shallow 



water and near a point of land running 

 a short distance into the lake. I ap- 

 proached them, under shelter of the 

 trees, to within ten rods and found 

 them busily engaged, .scooping up the 

 minnows which were so plentiful. It 

 was a grand sight and I could not help 

 admiring it; but they soon discovered 

 me and raised their wings to depart 

 and it is scarcely necessary to state 

 that I did what every naturalist would 

 have done whose collection did not in- 

 clude one of th«se birds, I took the life 

 from two of them. How much more 

 pleasure a picture of them would have 

 given me than the mounted bird ever 

 can. 



While visiting a colony of Western 

 and American Eared Grebes, during 

 the spring of '87, I saw some of the 

 finest sights that ever came under my 

 observation . There were not less than 

 50 pairs of the former and 150 of the 

 latter breeding in separate colonies. 



The Western Grebes were mostly 

 confitied to the furthermost point of 

 rushes extending into the lake. I pad- 

 dled my little canoe through a neck of 

 rushes connecting the breeding ground 

 with those growing nearer shore. The 

 little boat made very little noise which 

 was drowned by the breeze rattling 

 the rushes and many a Grebe was 

 caught napping. One bird stood up- 

 right to get a good view of the intruder 

 and then with a graceful dive she dis- 

 appeared leaving scarcely a ripple, 

 others quietly slipped from their nests 

 and soon their notes could be heard 

 just outside of the rushes, where 

 they were trying their best to charm 

 me. Well I ivas charmed by the lovely 

 sight. There were nests nearly touch- 

 ing each other and with a bird here and 

 there, as seen when I fii-st beheld the 

 sight, It would have made a picture 

 that was complete. 



I then visited the other colony, but it 

 covered such a large space that I saw 

 but few of them before they left their 



