No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIRDS. 493 



grow to be large enough to leave the nest. One nest I 

 found, that of a brown thrush, two feet high in a blueberry 

 bush, was robbed when it had young half grown." 



If foxes follow the tracks of people who find birds' nests, 

 then bird study and photography may prove dangerous to 

 the birds. 



Mr. C. E. Ingalls once intimated to me that he had some 

 reason to believe that a fox had followed his tracks to a 

 bird's nest. In response to a written inquiry he sends the 

 following: "I had at one tune under observation the nest 

 of a meadowlark. One afternoon about sundown I passed 

 the nest with its full complement of young a day or two 

 old, with everything looking favorable for a successful de- 

 velopment. I passed from the meadow where the nest was 

 situated up to a hillside adjoining, and in full view of the 

 location of the nest. I seated myself upon the ground to 

 watch some spotted sandpipers that I felt sure were nesting 

 beside the brook flowing through the meadow, when I saw 

 a fox come to the lower end of the meadow and begin to 

 hunt, as I supposed, for mice. In the course of his quar- 

 tering over the ground he apparently stumbled onto my 

 lark's nest, and, as he became aware of its proximity, he 

 pounced sharply to one side right into it. I jumped to my 

 feet and shouted to him, and ran towards the nest, while 

 Mr. Fox loped airily and quickly to the woods. When I 

 arrived on the scene, two of the young were gone and one 

 other lay about a foot from the nest, dead. One pleasant 

 evening in May I was sitting on a log near the edge of a 

 piece of mowing land, where it joined some scrub on the 

 edge of a wood. . . . While waiting, I saw a fox on the 

 edge of the grass land mincing along, in no hurry, and evi- 

 dently hunting for mice or grasshoppers, as he would thrust 

 his muzzle into the grass, then dance around as if watching 

 some moving object in the grass, make a grab, then move 

 along, all the time coming nearer to my position, which 

 was hidden from him so long as I remained motionless. 

 Suddenly, when the fox was within five or six rods of me, 

 a big ball of feathers flew oat of the scrub at him and drove 

 him some distance into the grass land. I immediately sized 



