Massachusetts Audubon Society 7 



A TROPICAL BIRD CAPTURED IN WEST ROXBURY 



About the middle of October, I discovered a beautiful Roseate Cockatoo 

 in my back yard. For three months he visited the chicken-yard every day 

 for his food, and many nights slept in a large pine tree near by. As the 

 weather became colder I feared the bird would perish and began to plan to 

 catch him. He lived through that terrible ice-storm we had and the zero 

 weather the week following. He would perch on the piazza roof, or in a 

 maple tree, always in the sun and often close to the trunk of the tree in the 

 best shelter he could find. 



I placed a shelf in the chicken-house, and he came to it twice a day to 

 feed. I arranged the window of the house so that it could be shut from a 

 distance by pulling a wire. I got rather discouraged after several unsuccess- 

 ful attempts to catch him and a friend suggested that I feed him corn 

 soaked in paregoric. Not having any of that drug, I gave him corn soaked 

 in whiskey which he ate as though he enjoyed the flavor. But, instead of 

 making him unable to fly as I hoped, it made him full of fight, and the 

 chickens had to keep at some distance from his crooked beak and out- 

 stretched wings for a little while. 



Finally, the day before Christmas, I hung a wreath near his feeding- 

 shelf which hid the window a little, and in ten minutes after placing the 

 wreath I had the window closed with my birdie on the inside. I kept him 

 there a few days and then brought him into the house. Now he occupies a 

 sun room and seems very content. 



Mrs. 0. H. HoDGiviNS, 1633 Center Street, 



WHERE BIRDS SPEND THEIR WINTERS 



Investigations on the status of birds in their winter homes have 

 been undertaken by the Bureau of Biological Survey, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, in connection with administration of the 

 treaty with Great Britain for the protection of birds migrating between 

 the United States and Canada. Many of these birds winter in South 

 America. Valuable material collected by Dr. Alexander Wetmore, of 

 the Survey, who recently returned after a year's absence in Argentina, 

 Paraguay, and Uruguay, during which he studied the status of our 

 migratory birds in those countries, will throw much light on the subject. 



Among our more familiar birds that Dr. Wetmore observed in 

 South America was the well-known barn swallow that ranges with 

 flocks of native swallows in open country. Many of the species encoun- 

 tered were shore-birds found through the marshy pampas or on the 

 coastal mud-flats; some were found to winter well north in the Topics, 

 and others to travel as far south as the Straits of Magellan. Among 

 our game-birds seen in Argentina and elsewhere were the golden plover 

 and pectoral sandpiper. 



Game Warden Sam Warner reports finding black bass feeding on 

 swallows at Kandiyohi Lake (Minnesota) on October 2nd. Two bass 

 caught that day were opened and the birds found in their stomach. Mr. 

 Warner expressed the opinion that the bass jumped and caught the swallows 

 as the latter alighted on the weeds near the surface of the water. 



