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Long-tailed Chats. In this instance, quite contrary to the general rule, the 

 female was quite the more timid of the two ; but she was also the more 

 assiduous. Since a critical listening, on my part, had proven her to be 

 thinner of voice than her mate, a critical comparison of the relative devo- 

 tion and the apparent emotions of the two became possible; during that most- 

 uncomfortable yet most- delicious two hours I spent upon the hot, shut-in 

 o-round, beneath spiny rose-bushes, in the depths of Cambria Canyon 



A belated, or possibly a normal second, laying of that same pair of 

 Chats was found, during early-July of the following summer; in a little 

 copse but a few rods from the site of the previous year. The site was at 

 about two feet, in a rose-bush. The finding was the culmination of a num- 

 ber of close searches. It is significant of the shyness of the Long-tailed 

 Chat that neither parent bird was seen, at any time, anywhere near this 

 nest. No apology is offered for the result of an effort to portray, in situ, an 

 interesting nest without distortion and without removal of any portion of 

 the surroundings of the nest. Criticism is easy: it is performance that 

 counts. And even a partial performance, — (light and wind permitting no 

 better), — is better than distortions of the stereotyped sort. Deep-set nests, 

 like normal structures of both the races of Chat, must always present grave 

 difficulties for the photographer. But the teaching purpose will ever just- 

 ify even meager result. 



5j£ 3JC 3(5 5f» 



Authentic Eggs of Cory's Least Bittern 



ON May 2, 1909, Mr. O. E. Baynard took at Micanopy, Florida, a set of 

 three heavily incubated eggs of Cory's Least Bittern. The female 

 bird was captured alive on the nest. Although the eggs are in my cabinet 

 and I am glad to have them, it is a pity they were not allowed to hatch and 

 the young birds taken when fledged, or if necessary reared in captivity, to 

 determine the status of the bird which is claimed by some to be a distinct 

 species and by others merely a meleanistic phase of the common Least 

 Bittern. /. L. C. 



