ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



665 



NEST OF A MALLARD IN THl hi I PHANT YARD. 



ag;ainst tlie bird's face will not cause her to 

 move ill the slightest degree. Even her eyes re- 

 fuse to blink. An extended hand may almost 

 touch her back, but an instant before the actual 

 contact she will rush from her nest with loud 

 cries of protest, and will not return until some 

 time after the departure of the disturber. Both 

 of the tiny houses in the enclosures of the coypu 

 rats have been pressed into service as temporarj' 

 nurseries by the ducks. Each is presided over 

 by a demure mallard, and neither eggs nor 

 young are ever disturbed by the rightful owners 

 of the shelters. One of the houses, measuring 

 perhaps eight by twelve feet, used for shelters 

 for the mule deer, has a duck nest in each of two 

 corners. The deer sleep here nightly and seek 

 protection during storms, yet seem to exercise 

 great care to avoid disturbing their guests. 

 But perhaps the most eccentric nest of all is 

 one placed in the yard of "Luna" the great 

 Indian elephant, close up against a wall, be- 

 hind a refuse box. "Luna" seems ver}' proud 

 of her little friend, and appears to have no de- 

 sire to disturb her. 



Another queer habit, which is doubtless a re- 

 sult of semi-domestication, is communal nesting, 

 generally participated in by two ducks. These 

 birds will either lay all their eggs in one nest, 

 each incubating half, or they may build two 

 nests, so close together that when both birds arc 

 sitting, it is quite difficult to say just how many 

 there are on the nests. This joining of inter- 

 ests is a very strange peculiarity, and difficult 

 of explanation, for it seems to serve no particu- 

 lar purpose. L. S. C. 



A WHITE RHINOCEROS HEAD. 



THREE weeks ago. President Roosevelt ad- 

 vised the Zoological Society that he proposed 

 to present to tiie National Collection of 

 Heads and Horns the head of one of the white 

 rhinoceroses that fell to his rifle in the Lado Dis- 

 trict. Naturally the news of this accession was 

 hailed with the keenest satisfaction, partly be- 

 cause of the extreme rarity of the specimen, and 

 partly because Colonel Roosevelt is to be repre- 

 sented in the National Collection by a specimen 

 that is worthy to stand as a gift from the fore- 

 most sportsman of the world. At this moment 

 tliere is not in all America a single mounted skin, 

 nor even a mounted Iiead, of a white rhinoceros; 

 and we know of only one skull. In a short time, 

 however, it is probable that more than one 

 American museum will be enriched by the gift 

 of a complete mountable skin of a full-grown 

 specimen of that species. 



To all zoologists and sportsmen wlio have not 

 closely followed the explorations of Major 

 Powell-Cotton in the Lado District, the develop- 

 ment of a new territory containing white rhino- 

 ceroses has been overlooked. We must confess 

 to profound surprise from the news that west 

 of the Nile and Lake Albert there is a large 

 area that evidently is well stocked with the 

 "square-mouthed" rhinoceros, which, until re- 

 cently, was regarded as being on the point of ex- 

 tinction. The narrative of Colonel Roosevelt's 

 hunting explorations in that territory should be 

 awaited by the public with very keen interest, 

 ^leanwhile, we find profound satisfaction in the 

 fact that the National Collection of Heads and 

 Horns is so soon to be enriched by another pro- 

 foundly interesting, and also imposing, zoolog- 

 ical rarity. W. T. H. 



A GREAT ELEPHANT HEAD. 



THROUGH the kindness of Mr. Samuel 

 Thorne, — for eleven jears a member of the 

 Board of Managers of the Zoological Park, 

 and a member of the Executive Committee, — the 

 National Collection of Heads and Horns has re- 

 ceived, as a loan, the magnificent elephant head 

 shot in British East Africa in I906 by Mr. 

 Richard Tjader, and mounted in the following 

 year by Mr. Herbert Lang, at the American 

 Museum of Natural History. The acquisition 

 of this grand trophy, even as a loan, may well 

 be regarded as a notable event in the history of 

 the Heads and Horns Collection; and it is a 



