THE MERRILL SONG SPARROW. os 
is the choice morsel of everything that preys,—cats, skunks, weasels, chip- 
munks, Sharp-shinned Hawks, Crows, Magpies, Black-headed Jays, and garter 
snakes. How would this motley company fare were it not for the annual 
crop of Song Sparrows? And the wonder of it is that the brave heart 
holds out and sings its song of trust and love with the ruins of three nests 
behind it and the harvest not yet past. 
Taken in Oregon. : Photo by A. W. Anthony. 
A PROFESSIONAL OOLOGIST. 
A little glimpse of Nature’s prodigality in this regard was afforded by 
a pair which nested on my grounds in the Ahtanum Valley. On the 4th 
of June I came upon a nest in a rose bush, containing four young just 
hatched, and these almost immediately disappeared—a second, or possibly 
a third, attempt for the season. On July 4th in an adjoining clump the 
saine pair was discovered with three well-fledged young, which, for aught 
I know, reached days of self-dependence. On July 24th a nest was found 
some twenty feet away containing four eggs, which I knew, both by the 
familiar notes and by elimination, to belong to this pair; but the nest was 
empty on the day following. 
At the beginning of the season nests are frequently made upon the 
ground under cover of old vegetation, or at the base of protecting bush 
clumps in swamps. Occasional ground nests may also be found thruout 
the season. One seen at Stehekin on August 3d was nestled loosely in a 
recumbent potato vine. At other times any situation in bush or tree, up 
to twenty feet, is acceptable, if only within convenient reach of water. A 
