94 



THE OOLOQIST 



pod; finally, in sheer desperation, be- 

 ing compelled to grasp the creature 

 by the beak and legs, and throw her 

 into the air, that she might return to 

 her nest, again. A Blue-winged Teal 

 was sighted, three feet away, upon 

 her nest, amid the crinkly grasses. 

 Here and there, all about, I was 

 saddened to find nests not a few of 

 Mallards and Shovellers that had been 

 despoiled by vermin. 



Amid the intensity and the persist- 

 ence of my search for nests of the 

 Rails that clicked their rhythmic call- 

 ings, all about, I found a quiet delight 

 in listening to the "winnowing" of a 

 Wilson Snipe. All of three afternoons 

 and three morning did I listen to him, 

 watching him, as, with every down- 

 ward dip, the piping of his wings 

 trickled out, so wierdly, upon the up- 

 per air. 



One sunny forenoon, I caught him 

 at a new trick. Alighting on a fence- 

 post some forty rods away, he 

 ecstatically uttered an intensely 

 "Tick-ber-tick-ber-tick-ber," thirty-two, 

 forty-six, seventy-four times, without 

 stopping! At first I deemed him 

 solicitious at my presence; but the dis- 

 tance gave an emphatic negative, to 

 that surmise. In fitful change, he 

 rapidly rose in the air, and came hurt- 

 ling to a post, not far from where I 

 was wallowing amid the quaking bogs. 

 Upon a nearby post he seated him- 

 self, and kept glancing about, bright- 

 eyed, yet not overly solicitious. 



In gentling mood, I moved toward 

 him, with slowness, emphasized more 

 and more, the closer I approached. 

 Not a sign of slightest fear gave he. 

 And when, at last, he quietly flew, 

 without sign of alarm, I found that I 

 had been standing but six feet away 

 from his post. 



Lustily blew the wind that after- 

 noon, and brilliant clouds provoked 

 cameri'^ing with a view to lirnning the 



plant-environ of that markedly-rich 

 breeding ground of the Rails. Upon a 

 little hummock, amid the willows and 

 the docks, I set up a buffalo skull, 

 lifted out of deep mire. At the very 

 moment when I was lifting the camera 

 for a shifting of a different type of 

 environ, right up from before m.y 

 very feet there fluttered, anxiously 

 crying, the mate of my soaring, win- 

 nowing Snipe. With many a cry, she 

 dropped among the bogs, a' few feet 

 from where I stood; and there went 

 through the throes of death agony. 

 (This is the second time I have had 

 this rare experience and in both 

 cases it has seemed strange, indeed, 

 that eggs in the nests were not half 

 incubated, that fifth of June.) 



Little luck had I, thop° fine June 

 days, with the finding of the nests 

 of land birds. Crossing the "hog- 

 wallow" to my coulee, the very first 

 morning, I did, indeed, flush, most un- 

 usually, a Baird Sparrow from her 

 magnificently spotted set of eggs. But 

 positively naught else did I find save 

 a brood of Western Meadow Larks in 

 a deeply-canopied nest amid the curly 

 grass, beneath a pasture fence. Sad 

 to relate, not an Upland Plover did I 

 find, in all that early June sojourn. 

 This is the first experience of that 

 sort in fifteen years. McCown Long- 

 spurs, also, were fewer than ever be- 

 fore. How I misssed their blythe 

 "Trillisth," with the wonted hover- 

 ings above the newly-sprouted grain 

 and the field-side of virgin prairie! 

 But, ah, the ecstasy of my bouts with 

 deaT little "Ornatus!" Even more 

 common than of old did I find this 

 exquisite bird, rarely beautiful of 

 plumage, splendidly brilliant of song. 

 Words could not express my joy as, of 

 evenings, not long before the 9:30 

 hour of sunset, I watched and listened 

 to the little fellows, both sexes, ani- 

 matedly, almost hysterically, hunting 



