THE OOLOGIST. 



79 



some branbles and nearly torn in two 

 in my hurry to disentangle it, so there 

 it was left as a good object lesson to me 

 to be more careful of frail things in the 

 future. 



This was so strange a site for a bird 

 to select for its nesting place, that it 

 seems well worth recording among the 

 many peculiararities in bird life. 



A. L. O. B., 

 Rochester, N. Y. 



An Ornitli(^ogical Mixture. 



Every ornithologist, at different times 

 in his career, will meet with many 

 strange statements and queries from the 

 irrepressible "small boy" and some- 

 times from ignorant older people. In 

 the following article I shall endeavor to 

 mix some of the most humorous of 

 these statements with other things orni- 

 thological, thus making An Ornitholog- 

 ical Mixture. 



First the small boy. I was informed 

 the other day by one of the "coming 

 ornithologists" (?) that the Barn Owl 

 does not nest in trees. He told me that 

 the Barn Owl always laid her eggs in a 

 barn, and that the Owls which nested 

 in trees were either '-White Owls" or 

 "Horned Owls." I could not make 

 him believe that his "Horned Owls" 

 were Screech Owls because he "had 

 never heard them screech." 



Another chap told me of a remark- 

 able nest he had once lound in a hol- 

 low tree, which contained a dozen blue 

 eggs "about as large as a pigeon's with 

 black spots all over them." He wanted 

 to know what kind of eggs they were, 

 and sad to relate, I had to confess my 

 ignorance as to the identity of these x-e- 

 markable specimens. 



Should this article by any means 

 dodge the waste-basket and any reader 

 of it can enlighten me as to the identity 

 of this rare tind he will have my undy- 

 ing gratitude for the rest of my days. 



Strange to say, when I asked for one 



of these eggs, I was informed that they 

 had all, in some unaccountable man- 

 ner, been broken. 



This story may seem strange, but it 

 paled into insignificance when I was 

 asked if I had any "bat's eggs." The 

 lad who asked me this question stated 

 that he knew of a bat's nest "in a sack 

 of pumpkins seeds under the floor of a 

 neighbor's barn," but that the man 

 would not let him get them. I wasted 

 half an hour trying to convince him 

 that bats did not lay eggs and left him 

 then only about half convinced. * 



But I must begin to "mix matters," 

 to quote the prize fight editor of some 

 of our leading newspapers. In think- 

 ing over my past collecting experiences 

 I recall the first and only nest of the 

 California Cuckoo that I ever found. 

 This was years ago, before I began to 

 collect eggs scientifically. The nest 

 was built in the fork of a willow tree 

 on the bank of a small stream, six feet 

 from the ground and contained six 

 eggs. Was this not a large set? The 

 nest was composed of twigs, very much 

 in the same manner as the nest of the 

 Mourning Dove. 



On the 1st of April, 1899, while out 

 riding my wheel along a country road 

 I found two Arkansas Goldfinches im- 

 paled upon a barbed wire fence. They 

 were fastened side by side, the barb in 

 both instances being passed through 

 the neck just below the base of the 

 skull. This was undoubtedly the work 

 of a California Shrike. Besides small 

 birds I have found many grasshoppers, 

 beetles, lizards and even small snakes 

 impaled in this way. It seems for 

 "pure cussedness" for the birds never 

 return to anything after it is dead. 



April 11, 1899, 1 found a very curious 

 nest of the Arkansas Goldfinch. It is 

 built in a five year old plum tree in our 

 orchard. The nest id huug between 

 two small perpendicular limbs, very 

 much in the manner of the Vireo's, 

 about 12 inches above the fork of a 



