JOURNAL OP MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



25 



and nothing of its nesting in those 

 days. My books of reference on my 

 pet hobby were very few indeed. I 

 had but one bird book, and that I 

 prized very liighly. It was '"Our 

 Birds, Their Nests and Eggs," by H. 

 P. White. It was a book of perhaps 

 fifty pages, small in size and gave but 

 small information on each bird. 



I did succeed in naming a few 

 birds such as Crested and Least Fly- 

 catcher, Wood Pewee and some others, 

 which I have found since were named 

 correctly. But when I found a nest 

 of albino eggs of the Blue-bird and 

 this book contained no description of 

 a blue-bird with white eggs. I decided 

 it was not up to date, and a more 

 complete woi'k was needed, so I or- 

 dered Samuels. But I do not believe 

 I brought this work home with quite 

 so much joy in my breast as I felt 

 when I rode home beside my father 

 with my first small book in my pocket. 



But to return to the Bitterns, I 

 made their acquaintance, as is usual, 

 in an unexpected way. The last of 

 July, 1889, I was crossing a large mea- 

 dow about one mile from the stream, 

 and as I came within about thirty rods 

 from the edge of the woods that bord- 

 ered the meadow, I saw a Bittern fly 

 up. Uttering its "quak," it dropped a 

 frog it had in its mouth and flew to- 

 ward the stream. 



I immediately began to search in 

 the coarse flat meadow grass for a 

 nest; soon up flew another bird, and 

 on going to the spot from which this 

 bird flew I saw a young, ungainly^ 

 fuzzy-looking Bittern skulking along 

 throught the grass. This I caught, 

 and soon saw another. I captured 

 this one also, and on looking still fur- 

 ther I found the nest and a smaller 

 bird that could not get very far from 

 the nest. These three I tied togi'^ther 

 by the legs and left them beside a 

 stump, and searched for more. Pre- 

 sently one of the old birds dropped in- 



to the grass near by, and on going to 

 look for it, I got quite close to it and 

 could not see it at first; but on seeing 

 the bird I found that by reason of the 

 stripes down its neck and back^ that 

 so much resembled the coarse grass 

 which it was hiding in, it was difficult 

 to distinguish it from the grass. Here 

 was a splendid example of protective 

 coloration. Soon a fellow who was 

 cutting the grass near by spoke to me 

 and said he had found another young 

 bird. I went to him and found he had 

 cut the poor bird's head off with his 

 scythe. He said the bird stood so still 

 in the grass he did not see it until he 

 had mowed its head off. This made 

 four birds and I decided it must be all 

 the nest had contained, so I began to 

 wonder what I would do with them. I 

 pitied the old birds, but decided to 

 take them home and keep them if pos- 

 sible. 



I was about two miles from home, 

 but overtook a fellow with a load of 

 hay, and putting the birds on the hay 

 I rode part way with him. On alight- 

 ing I found but two birds; the smaller 

 one had fallen from the load. I took 

 the two birds home, and built an en- 

 closure of woven wire fence, near the 

 stable, and built a small shelter in one 

 corner. I caught fish and frogs for 

 them; at first they 'ate very little, but 

 soon a growing appetite forced them 

 to eat and they began to grow, and the 

 amount of fish and frogs they soon de- 

 voured threatened to exterminate them 

 from the vicinity. After they were 

 well feathered I would cut a frog in 

 two pieces, and a pound black bass, 

 or a good sized perch or horn pout 

 I would only cut in four or five pieces 

 and they would seize them and swal- 

 low them with a few jerks of the head. 



They became soon to seem as con- 

 tented in their enclosure as in their 

 natural state, but when I took them 

 out and let them run about at leisure, 

 they would work toward a clump of 



