AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 219 



belated Robin two days after Christmas, I heard and saw what I was 

 quite sure was a Cuckoo on the 20th of March. I was quite a ways ofiE 

 so I couldn't tell, but it was going cu cu cuk, cu cu cuk, just the way I 

 have always heard them. Heard a Hermit Thrush on the 22nd of April. 

 I think their song is beautiful; it sounds like a flute, yet it tinkles like a 

 bell. I saw a Brown Thrasher on the 27th of April and I crept up with- 

 in ten feet of it before it flew. I saw some Blackbirds on March 18th 

 and a Purple Finch and Red-winged Blackbird on April 17th. 



I never saw the Bluebirds so plentiful around here as they have been 

 this year. I am not sure but the other morning I thought I heard an 

 Ovenbird. Last year I knew where an Ovenbird had her nest. It was 

 a little dome shaped structure made of pine needles and oak leaves, 

 laying flat on the ground in some underbrush. You wouldn't see it un- 

 less you knew where it was, and you had to go by some trees that it 

 was near. There were two eggs in it. Whenever I approached she 

 would run along the ground, like a Ruffed Grouse, trying to head you 

 from her young ones, with her wings trailing and uttering a distressed 

 cry, and walking as awkardly as she could. When I got to the nest 

 she would fly back and light on some brush near by and scold me. One 

 time a Ruffed Grouse fooled me; I was out with one of my neighbors, 

 Constance Fuller, picking lady slippers, when I heard the funniest 

 noise, at first I thought it was a boy getting a whipping and I ran to 

 see, and there was a Ruffed Grouse running along the ground. I ran 

 after it; I thought it couldn't fly, when all of a sudden I heard Con- 

 stance holler to me tocome quick and see some baby Ruffed Grouse. 

 I ran back but when I got there all had disappeared but one, and that 

 one was just crawling under some leaves. I lifted him out and took 

 him home to show. He looked just like a little chicken. The feathers 

 were of a light brownish yellow and very downy. I had his picture 

 taken and then took him back. That was a pretty good puzzle in your 

 paper last month; I guessed all but that turkey. 



Yours truly, 



Stafford Francis. 



Answers to Puzzles in June number: Missing words in account of 

 Brown Thrasher. 1, Brown Thrush; 2, Election Bird; 3, Eleven; 4, 

 Tail; 5. Brown; 6, Wings; 7, Whitish; 8, White; 9, Brown; 10, Breast; 

 11, Sides; 12, Ground; 13, Tail; 14, May; 15, June; 16, Treetop; 17, 

 Up; 18, Drooping; 19, Nest; 20, Bark; 21, Grasses; 22, Roots; 21, Green; 

 24, Brown. 



Answers for Nuts to Crack: 



1. Cowbird, Ovenbird, Meadowlark, Titlark, Partridge. 



2. Bobolink, Bluebird, Goldfinch, Indigo Bunting, Purple Finch. 



