Publications Received. 39 



direction of the stockyards — but I have never happened to see 

 any returning in the evening. 



AGNES CHASE, Hyde Park, Chicago. 



A Bob-White Tragedy. — The lower animals as well as man are 

 subject to many ills and accidents. This is well illustrated by the 

 number of incidents which are noted in natural history magazines. 

 Instinct, it is true, has taught them much, yet nevertheless, they 

 are constantly in danger of their lives. 



One day last spring (April 20, 1902), while tramping the woods 

 and fields north of Detroit, we saw an object hanging to a wire 

 fence. Upon nearing it, it proved to be a female Bob-white (Colinus 

 virginianus). The right foot had become tangled in a loop in the 

 wire, and in trying to escape, the bird had disarticulated the leg 

 bone from the hip. Here it must have hung for hours until death 

 at last relieved it of its tortures. Who can imagine the pain which 

 this creature must have suffered? 



On a log a short way from the scene sat a male of this species, 

 possibly its mate. Across the fields rang a gentle "Bob-white, a 

 Bob-white," and as I paused I thought, "Ignorance is bliss." 



A. W. BLAIN, Jr., Detroit, Mich. 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



The Story of a Martin Colony. — By J. Warren Jacobs. This, the 

 second of a series of ilustrated pamphlets based on the author's 

 researches and observations, the first being issued in 1898 under 

 the title of Ooiogical Abnormalities; is a record of the establish- 

 ment and maintenance of a colony of four or five pairs of Purple 

 Martins at the writer's home in Waj^nesburg, Green County, Penn., 

 and of its subsequent increase until it numbered almost three hun- 

 dred individuals at the end of the fourth season — more than could 

 obtain lodging in the ninety-nine rooms of the three houses, over 

 one hundred being compelled to roost in the branches of a nearby 

 apple tree. The next three years witnessed an annual overflow, 

 accommodated by new houses furnished and erected by his exper- 

 ienced hand in various parts of the town. If the colony had re- 

 mained intact it would in all probability have numbered in the 

 neighborhood of twelve hundred birds at the end of the seventh 

 year. 



After the introduction, the subtitles are as follows: Topograph- 

 ical Sketch and Existing Conditions of the Premises and Vincity, 

 Establishment and Subsequent Scenes of the Colony, Return from 



