118 



THE OOLOGIST. 



seemed to have no difficulty in flying 

 about in the open air. 



Yecolote graude, 

 [H. H. D.] Fullerton, Cal. 



My First Trip in '99. 



How the einging of the birds makes 

 the hot blood surge through the veins of 

 the school boy egg crank! Well do I 

 remember when I was only a high 

 school lad how I used to look forward 

 to those spring Saturday morniogs 

 when I could escape the hardships of 

 school hours and flee to the woods, 

 wander up the deep brook-bottomed 

 gullies that pierce the bluffs at right 

 angles to the river valley, gaze with 

 wistful eye at the Red-tails — Hen Hawks 

 they were then^as they sat secure from 

 all my youthful spoliation on their 

 riests, high up in the dead forks of some 

 mammoth hard maple or black walnut, 

 which more fortunate than its fellows, 

 had escaped the early squatter's axe. 

 Then I would pass on to the broader 

 ravines bordering the green rolling 

 prairie where the Red-shouldered and 

 Cooper Hawks loved to sit on the dead 

 limb of some tree on the very margin 

 of the woods, and preen their feathers 

 in the sunlight or dash after some chip- 

 munk or mouse which had left his nest 

 to drink the clear water just where it 

 bubbled out of the gravel bank. Far 

 over head the dark colored Turkey Buz- 

 zard would sail on motionless wing in 

 wide circles, looking for some winter- 

 killed sheep, or Mr. Kingfasher would 

 trumpet forth to tell his lady that he 

 was having good fishing. 



I never was much of an egg collector 

 even in these early days. I would far 

 rather lie under the trees and watch the 

 Red-tails feed their young or hide in 

 some gooseberry thicket, and by imi- 

 tating the distress note of a young bird, 

 <;all the Catbirds and Wood Thrushes 

 around me, than go back laden with a 

 basket full of eggs. Yet those days 



were rich in the treasures they yielded. 

 Cowbirds' eggs by the tens — why not? 

 Cowbirds laid in other birds' nests. 

 Kingbirds' eggs by twenties — why not? 

 They used to fight other birds. Black- 

 birds' eggs by the hundred — for they 

 stole corn. 



But those days have long since passed 

 away. All my old school-mates have 

 long since given up their interest in 

 birds' eggs, and have turned to the 

 sterner realities of business life, doubt- 

 less the tearing of so many pairs of new 

 knee trousers could not be compensated 

 by the meagre return of a day or two in 

 the woods. I. too, have less time to 

 roam the woods than I used to, but I 

 still love, on a bright Sunday afternoon 

 to go out into the groves — for the big 

 timber has been all cut away — and watch 

 the Vireos climb along the branches of 

 the trees and hunt for insects or watch 

 Mrs. Wood Pewee and her family on the 

 dead twig of some moss-grown oak 

 limb. 



In those olden days I seldom wander- 

 ed far from town — two or three miles 

 down the river or along the creek was 

 as far as 1 dared think of going. A 

 half day in the sloughs was a rarity sel- 

 dom enjoyed and therefore much ap- 

 preciated. But now times have changed 

 and what time I can get for egging 1 

 spend in the sloughs. 



To the uninitiated the idea of slough 

 wading is far from pleasant. To think 

 of plodding through rushes and wild 

 rice, taller than one's head, for a half 

 day at a time, stumbling over bogs and 

 falling into muskrat runs, laboring 

 through great bogs of dead and decay- 

 ing vegetation which make one's legs 

 itch for days; now dry shod over a bed 

 of moss-grown rocks on a small island 

 and now up to one's arm pits in dark 

 oozy water— there is not much pleasure 

 in all that. Some of these difficulties 

 may be avoided in the larger sloughs 

 by using a boat or in the smaller ponds 

 by wearing wading boots, but the only 



