No. 4.] DECREAvSE OF BIRDS. 493 



o^row to be laro;c enouo:li to leave the nest. One nest I 

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

 bush, was rol)be(l when it had young half grown." 



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

 then bird study and photography may pro^'e 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 res})onse to a written inquiry he sends the 

 following: " I had at one time 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 w^as 

 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 Avaiting, 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 })osition, which 

 was hidden from liim so long as I remained motionless. 

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

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

 him some distance into the grass land. I immediately sized 



