° 1912 ] BohLES, Notes on Whip-poor-wills and Owls. 151 



Cape Breton. Many a man of similar field experience has failed 

 to profit greatly by it; but Frank Bolles was accustomed to so 

 direct and systematize whatever work he had in hand as to make 

 it yield the best possible results and by personal observation 

 chiefly, within a period extending over not more than ten years, 

 he became intimately acquainted with many of our New England 

 birds besides ascertaining facts concerning some of them which 

 had not previously been known to any one. Unfortunately he 

 had scarce begun to draw on this rich store of original information 

 for purposes of publication when his life came prematurely to an 

 end. Nor had he committed much of it to paper in any form, 

 being accustomed to rely largely on a memory so perfect that it 

 rarely failed and never misled him. He left, however, some 

 finished manuscripts which Mrs. Bolles has published since his 

 death in two volumes entitled respectively "From Blomidon to 

 Smoky and Other Papers" and "Chocorua's Tenants"; the latter 

 book consisting of a collection of original poems relating — with a 

 single exception — to familiar birds. There were also a few pages 

 of field notes — written on the backs of printed lists of Harvard 

 Professors which Mrs. Bolles has most kindly placed at my dis- 

 posal, thereby enabling me to oft'er them to the editor of 'The Auk ' 

 who has accepted them with an eagerness which does credit to his 

 known appreciation of everything especially precious in ornitholog- 

 ical literature. Since he proposes to print them as nearly as 

 possible in their original form, and also to reproduce by photo- 

 graphic process a portion of the manuscript with some pen and ink 

 sketches which accompany it, they may safely be left without 

 further word from me, to testify — even more convincingly perhaps 

 than have any of his finished printed essays — to the extraordi- 

 nary care, precision, patience and intelligence with which Mr. 

 Bolles was accustomed to pursue his field studies of birds. — W. B. 



With the Whijy-poor-wills. ' 



July 5th. <S.25, on stone heap E. of barn. 8.27, stone W. 

 of well. 8.33, hears other down by lake and disappears instantly. 

 Whip, down by lake about f minute later whips very much faster 

 than usual. 8.45 Whip. H whips a few times bet. house and lake. 



