THE OOLOGIST 



279 



Nesting of the Savannah Sparrow in 

 Center County, Pa. 



The season of 1911 was without 

 doubt the most unsuccessful period 

 in my short career as a field Oologist. 

 Starting out with great promise, all 

 my plans came to a sudden termina- 

 tion in late April when a severe cut, 

 sustained on a collecting trip, develop- 

 ed into blood poisoning and laid me U|) 

 for six weeks of the best time of the 

 year. The results of this confinement 

 bore fruit in an aggravated case of 

 the Oological fever in July and though 

 of course the results were few and 

 far between yet on one of these trips 

 it was my good fortune to find the Sa- 

 vannah Sparrow nesting and though 

 the set was small and the eggs far 

 gone, yet I have decided to place it 

 on record as the bird is an extremely 

 rare breeder in Center County. In re- 

 lating the finding of this nest I have 

 decided to simply copy the data from 

 my note book entirely and thus give 

 the notes, first hand to the readers or 

 THE OOLOGIST. 



July 20, 1911. While walking across 

 the recently cut hay field on the Ex- 

 periment farms one mile northeast of 

 College, 1 saw several Bartramian 

 Sandpipers and heard them calling. 

 In some bushes along the road saw 

 some Chestnut Sided Warblers and 

 on the telegrai)h wires overhead a 

 family party of Sparrow Hawks. Sev. 

 eral broods of Grasshopper Sparrows 

 were observed and in a deserted nest 

 of this bird which had been partly 

 torn out by the hayrake, a single fresh 

 egg was found. Several hundred yards 

 off, a vesper Sparrow was flushed from 

 a bulky, firmly built nest which held 

 an incomplete set of one egg. The 

 nest was raised from the surface of 

 the ground and protected by an over- 

 hanging Plantain leaf. 



I was walking on across the field 

 when suddenly I saw a small bird run 



along the ground ahead of me. Sup- 

 ] losing it was a Vesper, 1 paid little 

 attention to the bird but on looking 

 down at the well hidden nest it had 

 left I instantly saw I had found some- 

 thing new and on following the bird, 

 saw it to be a Savannah Sparrow, a 

 rare breeder in this locality and 

 though I had known there was a pair 

 in these extensive fields, I had hardly 

 hoi)ed to find them at this late date. 



Leaving the nest for a half hour I 

 came back and found the female sit- 

 ting. Though she watched me care- 

 fully, yet I approached until I could 

 nearly touch her and watched her 

 carefully for several minutes before 

 she flitted off and walking about near 

 me showed the yellow eye spot and 

 the peculiarly arrow spotted breast 

 very distinctly. 1 had thought of 

 shooting her, but the view I now ob- 

 tained made me doubly pcsitive of the 

 identity. 



The nest was sunken three inches 

 in the ground and was very scanty, be- 

 ing merely a flimsy lining n1 yellow- 

 ish grass stems. The cavitv was so 

 deep that only the head and tail of 

 the sitting bird could Le seen and 

 the depression seemed especially 

 built for the nest. This held two far 

 incubated eggs which were saved as 

 second class s))ecimens. The shells 

 were extremely soft, nearly like wet 

 blotting pa])er. They retenible a cer- 

 tain type of Song Sparrow's eggs, 

 rather more elongated and slender and 

 are densely sjjotted and blotched with 

 various shades of rufous brown, the 

 ground color being scarcely discerna- 

 ble. Richard C. Harlow. 



Killdeer in Lake Co., Illinois. 

 During the summer of 1909 I was 

 working at farm and garden work, 

 Zion City, Illinois, and as often as I 

 could spare the time I would go and 

 either hum botanical specimens, oolo- 



