102 



THE OOLOGIST 



1918 numbers of Bird Lore, the aver- 

 age dates of departure of the Barn 

 Swallow at Washington, D. C, and 

 Philadelphia, Penn., are Sept. 8th and 

 9th, respectively, and the extreme 

 dates are Sept. 19th and Oct. 17th, re- 

 spectively. 



Arthur Farquhar. 



Disease, and Bird Life 

 P. B. Peabody, Blue Rapids, Kansas 

 I have often found dead birds, with 

 no marks of violence upon their 

 bodies; and have fallen to wondering 

 at the cause of death. Almost invari- 

 ably, the ailment has been found to 

 be some form of liver derangement. 

 On the shore of Spirit Lake, Iowa, 

 I once found a beautiful specimen of 

 the Franklin Gull. It was utterly 

 emaciated; and all the capillaries 

 were much congested. The liver was 

 manifestly the cause of the emancipa- 

 tion and subsequent death. Last 

 spring, in Iowa, several birds were 

 brought to me, in perfect plumage; 

 one of these being a Red-headed 

 Woodpecker. Here, again, it was the 

 liver that went wrong. Later, the 

 same young lady that found the Wood- 

 pecker brought me a magnificent Barn 

 Owl. The plumage of this bird was 

 in absolutely perfect condition. In 

 preparing the body to be sent to 

 Omaha for mounting I, of course, 

 sexed the specimen; and examined 

 the viscera with care. The bird was 

 neither lean nor fat; nor was there 

 any congestion. But the liver was 

 wholly atrophied; and the gall-blad- 

 der had burst. A few weeks later the 

 young lady found the mate to this 

 superb male Barn Owl. This, also 

 was dead. 



Jottings of iVlay 1919 

 Resisting not the call of the woods 

 and the spell of the Spring I have 

 gone out and away this Sunday after- 



noon of early May. It is along towards 

 evening and the breezes that stir the 

 new leaves on the trees are cool and 

 refreshing and soul filling. 



Only yesterday it rained and the 

 earth is still moist and damp; but all 

 vegetation seems to have added a new 

 vigor and lustre. The brooklet has 

 run long enough to become clear 

 again. 



I am now seated upon an oldstone 

 wall near the above mentioned brook, 

 whose rustic grayness is reflected in 

 its gurgling waters. Quietly the 

 stream flows here yet only a little 

 way beyond the presence of small 

 stones and pebbles obstruct its 

 course; and the brook, seeming glad 

 of the opposition, gurgles and sings 

 as it flows along until, after many 

 windings and twisting about, finally 

 passes into the silver body of the 

 Lake-of-the-Woods, whose silveryness 

 I can see through the trees at my 

 left. From my seat on the wall I can 

 look upwards through the branches, 

 into the depths of a blue sky where 

 two Turkey Vultures are sailing about 

 on motionless pinions, seemingly dis- 

 obeying the law of gravity. A multi- 

 tude of the feathered folk are about 

 me, going about their courtship and 

 house-building as though I was no- 

 where in the neighborhood. 



In an old elm over my head, an Or- 

 chard Oriole is paying court to his 

 olive-yellow wife, while in the same 

 tree yet higher up, an Indigo Bunting 

 is trying to attract the attentions of 

 a sparrow-like bird — his mate. In the 

 bushes near the brook I can see a 

 pair of White-throated Sparrows kick- 

 ing about the leaves on the ground. 

 A Brown Thrasher, farther up the 

 slope, is doing the same thing, only 

 he is making more noise about it; the 

 while another, likely his mate, is seat- 

 ed on the topmost branch of a small 

 tree and singing as only a Thrasher 



