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JOURNAL OF MAINP: ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCILTY. 



hath wings shall tell the matter." The 

 picture of the sower going forth from a 

 village to the remote fields to sow the 

 grain, and of the birds following his 

 steps to gather up the seed that may fall 

 upon the narrow paths which bordered 

 or crossed the fields, is intensely orien- 

 tal and oiit-of-doorsy. How often even 

 in our New England life have some of 

 us seen the Robin following closely after 

 the plow in the furrow to gather up for 

 its food or for its young the grubs and 

 the worms that miglit be uncovered. 

 According to Dr. Wm. H. Thomson in 

 "The Land and the Book," it is not the 

 smaller birds, but the larger ones that 

 are the greatest thieves of the seed 

 sown. His statement is substantially as 

 follows. A tangled jungle of cane and 

 bushes near the banks of the Jordan is 

 a roosting-placeof the Crows and Rooks 

 from which they go forth at early dawn 

 like the columns of an endless army. 

 They are the plague of the farmer. 

 They devour so much of the freshly- 

 sown seed that he has to make a large 

 allowance for their depredations. It is 

 useless to try to frighten them away. 

 They tly up at the report of a gun, wheel 

 round and round for a few minutes, 

 cawing noisily, and then settle down 

 again to their work of robbery as if 

 nothing had happened. They fly to 

 great distances in these foraging excur- 

 sions, scattering in smaller groups for 

 the day's pillaging, and at evening they 

 gather again to their resting-place, where 

 they discuss the adventures of the day 

 in clamorous chatterings, silenced at 

 length for the night's rest. 



"Birds have" haunts, lodging-places, 

 resting-places, not "nests," as in our 

 version, presents a picture of some 

 sequestered grove or tree-clump, some 



sheltered hillside or brookside, where 

 birds may gather and rest undisturbed. 

 The bird haunts where great numbers 

 gather to spend the night for weeks at a 

 time, as the Swallows do every fall in 

 the willows on an island in the Rlessa- 

 lonskee at Waterville, come much nearer 

 to the true thought than the word nests 

 comes. More of our birds have the 

 habit of gathering for shelter in flucks 

 or in groups than miglit at first be 

 thought. Crows, Jays, Swallows, Rob- 

 ins, Bine-birds, Thistle-finches, Spar- 

 rows, Juncoes, Snowfiakes, and many 

 others do this to a greater or less extent. 

 It is also true that birds gather in cer- 

 tain favorable places for nesting and 

 breeding. We all know how populous 

 some old-fashioned chimney may be 

 with the many families of Chimney-Swifts 

 taxing its generously-proportioned hos- 

 pitality ; how compactly placed the mud- 

 houses of the Eave Swallows often are 

 under the protection of the projecting 

 eaves of some barn or shed belonging to 

 a kind-hearted farmer ; how completely 

 honey-combed with the tunnels of the 

 Sand Martin are the walls of some fav- 

 orably located sand-bank, — a bank that 

 receives many deposits and makes large 

 dividends, unless there is some cruel 

 run upon the bank by an army of small 

 boys ; how snugly the Sea-bii'ds cover 

 every spot and fill every erevice and 

 nook of some rocky, almost inaccessible 

 island ; how fully occupied are the trees 

 of some protected heronry, either by the 

 nests of the Great Blue Heron or of the 

 Black-Crowned night Heion, as in the 

 heronry in Brown's woods at P'almouth 

 Foreside. After listening for some 

 weeks to the peculiar cries of these last- 

 named Herons, frequently by day, 

 sometimes by night, I do not wonder 



