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AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY 

 A BIRD/LAND TRAGEDY. 



NE beautiful Sunday afternoon in 

 the month of March, 1900, I was 

 sitting with a friend on the piazza of 

 his home in the state of Florida. 

 The day was an ideally perfect one, 

 the lower south springtide was at its 

 flood, and earth and air seemed 

 vocal with rejoicing. In a close by 

 date-palm a Mockingbird was indus- 

 triously constructing her nest, se- 

 renely oblivious to the command: 

 "Six days shalt thou labor and do 

 all thy work," while from the top- 

 most twig of a live oak tree her 

 mate poured forth his soul in the 

 rhapsody of an impassioned love song; the Martins twittered and 

 scolded from every window of their house, while a gorgeous Redbird, 

 like a living flame, slipped in and out of the plumy depths of a clump 

 of bamboo to the accompaniment of his clear, flute-like whistles; and 

 everywhere the Blue Jays were living up to their well deserved repu- 

 tation for noisiness and "as a disturber of the general peace." 



In the top of a tall black jack oak growing on the lower edge of a 

 small field lying directly opposite the piazza on which we were sitting, 

 two Jays in particular were strenuously endeavoring to outdo each 

 other in clamor. Suddenly a dark streak cut athwart our line of vision 

 and disappeared like a flash into the top of the oak, to almost instant- 

 ly reappear and make off into the nearby hammock growth, and at the 

 same time one of the Jays filled the air with cries of terror and pain, 

 while its mate winged its way up across the narrow field with all the 

 speed that mortal fear could inspire, and disappeared into the friendly 

 shelter of the afore mentioned clump of bamboo. 



It all happened so suddenly and in so brief a space of time that we 

 hardly realized what it meant. But as the terrorized cries of the Jay 

 continued to arise from the hammock I exclaimed to my companion, 

 "Something must have caught one of the Jays!" "Yes," said he, "it 

 was a Blue Darter." And involuntarily we both sprang up and ran 

 down across the field to the hammock, guided by the unceasing cries of 

 the captured bird. I took a lane which ran along the edge of the wood, 

 but my friend, more familiar with the location, turned into a by-path 

 and the Hawk, hearing the noise of his approach, flew up and abandoned 



