Monthly Bulletin 5 



cat finally devoured them. I believe this was the same pair of jays 

 which had built and reared their young at the railroad site the previous 

 year. Thus molested by the cat, the blue jays have not since returned 

 to build in or about my premises. 



Robin 

 Four years ago a pair of robins built on the top of an open shutter 

 of a second-story window of my house at Chestnut Hill, and they suc- 

 cessfully reared the young and paid little attention to watchers from 

 the inside of the window. The following year a pair of robins built 

 on the same shutter. The next year they built similarly on a shutter 

 of the next house and the following year again built in that location. 

 Through the opening of the shutter at that time, the nest was destroyed 

 and we have not seen them since. Doubtless the four repetitions of 

 this peculiar nesting-location was by birds of the same family. 



Catbird 

 For several years we have been regaled by singing of a catbird and 

 frequent sight of a pair of them and later of their young. I knew the 

 birds must have nested in the shrubbery near my house. After the 

 foliage had dropped in the fall of 1919 I found the nest in one of the 

 shrubs, and in 1920 I found the nest while the eggs were being laid, in a 

 shrub at the corner of my lot about seven feet from the ground, within 

 ten feet of the curbstone on both streets, where hundreds of automobiles 

 and other vehicles pass daily, and within twenty feet of the place where 

 my family and friends enter and leave motors to and from my house 

 several times daily. The catbird while brooding would permit us to 

 go within a few feet of the nest without leaving it. The young were 

 successfully reared. This spring (1921) the catbirds returned, and we 

 enjoyed them and their song for several weeks. I discovered the nest 

 in a shrub this time about ten feet from the ground, on the opposite 

 corner of my lot but still within ten feet of the street. Suddenly the 

 nest was forsaken, and we have heard and seen nothing of the catbirds 

 since. My belief is that a cat molested the nest and that if it did not 

 catch one of the birds while brooding it drove them away. They may 

 or may not return next year, but I fear the chances are against their 

 doing so. 



RosE-BREASTED GrOSBEAK 



Mr. J. Robertson Ward, of Brookline, gives the following interesting 

 and valuable observation: 



"In the spring of 1920 we found a young rose-breasted grosbeak 

 in the alley behind our house. He was unable to fly; so we took him 

 into the house and raised him on various foods until he was able to fly. 

 He had the run of the house and was perfectly tame. 



"We would take him into the park and he would fly to the top of 

 a tree and come back to us. He flew out of the window one day late 

 last summer and played around the park and came back to the cage, 



