^°J-^^^] General Notes. 285 



A few examples of cases coining under my notice at Demarest, are as 

 follows : on June 7 a Field Sparrow's nest was found in a weed clump in 

 a meadow, containing three young. On the 13th three lifeless, water- 

 soaked bodies lay in the nest, which the birds would have left in a few- 

 days. On June 11 a Kingbird's nest was found just completed, and this 

 nest was subsequently deserted by the birds before any eggs had been 

 laid, apparently as a result of its continued soaked condition. On the 

 same date, and in the same orchard I examined a Bluebird's nest, in a 

 knot-hole in an apple limb, their second nest for the season, and contain- 

 ing at this time four eggs. On July 4 I visited this nest again, and the 

 wet, decaying, and deserted eggs were still in the nest, which had evi- 

 dently been partly filled with water. 



On June 13 I photographed a nest of four young Chipping Sparrows, 

 in a grapevine, close to a house. The situation of this nest seemed ideal 

 for withstanding the weather, a number of large leaves sheltering it very 

 well. The young were then almost ready to leave the nest. On the 

 morning of the 15th, following a day and night of hard rain, these birds 

 were found dead. 



Mr. S. H. Chubb, of this city, reported to me a case on Staten Island, of 

 the drowning out of a family of young of the Tufted Titmouse. 



Mr. S. N. Rhoads wrote me that though he could not doubt that there 

 had been an unusual mortality among young birds owing to the heavy 

 rains, he had not, in his limited field work, seen any evidence of it. Mr. 

 William B. Burke, writing from Rochester, N. Y., said that this subject 

 had been brought up at a meeting of the Ornithological Club, and that 

 the consensus of opinion was "that there had been no perceptible loss 

 among young birds as a result of excessive rains in this region." He 

 added that living adjacent to a ninety acre beech wood, he had seen no 

 evidence of unusual mortality among young birds, and that friends from 

 Canada reported that there was no apparent loss theie. 



Mr. Josiah H. Clark, of Paterson, N. J., reported that at Crystal Lake 

 the prolonged rains flooded a Bluebird's nest in a hole in a stump, caus- 

 ing the birds to desert the four eggs that the nest contained. He also 

 cited the case of a House Wren's nest which had been flooded and 

 deserted in the same manner. 



Mr. T. H. Jackson, of West Chester, Pa., writes : "Although I kept no 

 record, I noticed that a great many nests were broken up by the cold 

 rains during the early summer of 1903. Approximately I should say at 

 least fifty percent among the smaller species failed to mature in the nests. 

 Am sorry I can not give you more accurate information." 



Mr. John Lewis Childs, of Floral Park, N. Y., writes that on Long 

 Island he had been unable to find any evidence of unusual mortality 

 among young birds. He further adds, however : "At a recent visit with 

 John Burroughs up the Hudson Valley, 1 learned that he had examined a 

 great many nests this fall, and in a large number of them found the 

 remains of young birds, and he is of the opinion that large numbers of 

 nestlings died, perhaps as high as twenty-five percent." 



