ORNITHOLOGIST 



AND — 



OOLOGIST. 



$1.00 per 

 Annum. 



Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 

 Established, March, 1875. 



Single Copy 

 10 Cents. 



VOL. VIII. 



BOSTON, FEBRUARY, 1883. 



No. 2. 



Oological and Ornithological. 



June 12th, found nest of Green Her- 

 on {Bntorides viresce?is) in an apple tree, 

 about twenty feet from the ground. He 

 took from it two eggs, which I told him 

 was wrong, as he should have waited for 

 the full set. On the 15th, while passing 

 the tree, he saw the Heron on the nest again, 

 and on examination found a new egg there- 

 in, which, on descending, was shook out 

 and broken. On the 23d I sent him out 

 again and he took three more eggs, one of 

 which showed signs of incubation. Thus 

 the birds were forced to laj^ a larger num- 

 ber than usual, and under peculiar circum- 

 stances, I think. About the same time a 

 boy found another nest with five eggs in 

 it, but this being situated upon an island, 

 in a thorn tree, the water surrounding it 

 too high by rains, and the cold weather 

 here prevented our getting this set. 



Yellow-ere.\sted Chats, {Icteria virens,) 

 I found quite numerous, especially on a 

 place of about fifteen acres, where the tim- 

 ber had previously been cut down and the 

 stumps had been putting forth new bushes 

 from five to fifteen feet high : in these I 

 found at least thirty good nests. 



American Redstart, {Setophaga ruticil- 

 la,) also nested quite plentifully here last 

 season. One of the loveliest nests I took 

 in May, 1881, with a set of four eggs; it 

 was built in an oak sapling, at a height 

 level with the eyes ; it separated into three 

 equal branches, the nest cavity in the cen- 

 tre. One might stand a foot distant and 

 see nothing but a swelling, seemingly 

 caused by the branches : so neat, compact 



and in mimicry to the tree trunk is the 

 structure built. 



Wood Thrushes, {ITi/loctchla mustelina.) 

 The creek timbers all about here are full 

 of them, and the Cow-bird, {Jlolothnrs 

 ater,) seems to find this nest particularly 

 convenient, for almost every other nest has 

 this parasitic egg among the rightful own- 

 er's, and in some instances two and more. 

 My friend, Dr. Matthews, a great lover of 

 Oology, now in Kansas, and myself found 

 a nest in the Vermillion river timber, near 

 Pontiac, containing three of the Blue 

 Thrushes and three (each differently 

 marked) Cow-bird's eggs. The color, con- 

 trast and the nicety with which they had 

 been placed in the nest, half to half, was 

 strikingly wonderful. 



Cat Bird. {Galeoscoptes carolinensis,) 

 very plentiful here, and I only mention 

 them as we have found a number of nests 

 with five eggs in them. 



TowHEE Bunting. {Pipilo erytliroijlitkal- 

 mus,) was also nesting in numbers here. 

 The first nests found were invariably on 

 the ground, but the high water overflow- 

 ing the timber lands last Spring, caused a 

 second later brood, which we found in 

 numbers in bushes from two to eight feet 

 from the ground. 



Prairie Warbler. {Dendneca discolor.) 

 also nesting here in abundance. 



Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, {Icterus 

 spurins and I. galhida.) We found sev- 

 eral nests, one of the former having been 

 destroyed by accident when with but two 

 eggs ; the birds commenced rebuilding im- 

 mediately in the same tree, and, as I was 

 told afterwards, raised their brood. 



