Doc. 1890.] 



AWD OOLOGIST. 



183 



interior and leave him witliont fear of clanger 

 in the futnre. 



Unfortunately the wind changed and drove 

 the tire back, and it was only after a hard 

 light that the honse was saved. The lire 

 made a clean sweep along the bay shore, burn- 

 ing up all low vegetation and charring the trees 

 to a height of twenty or thirty feet. 



Much to my satisfaction it had killed or 

 driven off the snakes, and I was now able to 

 go about the country witliout fear of them, 

 but if there had been any eggs in the woods it 

 seemed imi>ossible that they should have es- 

 caped destruction. 



The fire occurred April 11th ; on the 18th I was 

 walking through a hammock, about a hundred 

 yards from the bay, when a ('huck-wiU's-widow 

 flew up a few yards from me, and almost in- 

 stantly I saw its two handsome eggs lying on 

 some dry leaves. Upon bhtwing them I found 

 them to be incubated at least two days, as tlie 

 yolks had bloody strings in them, proving that 

 they had been deposited previous to the 11th. 



The eggs were laid on a spot of ground not 

 more than a foot in diametei', covered with dry 

 leaves, which the fire had not touched, thougji 

 it had burned right up to the edge of the spot 

 and all around it. It will remain a mystery to 

 me why that particular spot escaped. Never 

 was an (xilogist more delighted than I was 

 when 1 saw tliose two beauties; since that 

 time their markings have faded so that much 

 of their beauty is lost. 



The owner of the nest flew oft" with a whin- 

 ing cry, and remained out of sight. 



During a cruise doAvn tiie coast I heard the 

 birds by night on the islands as well as on the 

 mainland, and found one nest. On May 0th I 

 landed on a little key in Lemon Hay, near its 

 shdic, to gatlier some tii>anish moss. The 

 little island was densely overgrown witii ce- 

 dars, Spanish bayonets and bushes. From the 

 bare ground under a little cedar tree I flushed 

 the bird from its two little ones, covered with 

 brown down. The old bird fluttered about in 

 great distress while I was admiring its treas- 

 ures, so I soon left it. 



On my return to Little Sarasota Bay I found 

 that my liost had taken two or three sets of 

 eggs of this species along the Myakka River, 

 about ten miles inland, lie said the birds 

 were much more common there than on the 

 coast. Ilarnj K. Jamiston, 



.Manayunk, IMiila. 



[It is to be hoped that Mr. .Jamison will give 

 us more of his interesting experiences in the 

 South.— J. P. \.] 



Eggs of the Everglade Kite. 



Tlie eggs of the Everglade Kite (Rostrhamus 

 Hnriahilift) are extremely rare, and the only set 

 that I know of in any of the collections be- 

 sides the one now before me is one consisting 

 of three eggs, formerly in the Bailey collec- 

 tion, and described in TJie Auk, Vol. 1, p. 95. 

 They are now in the American Museum of 

 Natural History, New York, and are 

 1.91x1.50; 1.80x1.51, and 1.80x 1.45. Davie 

 {Nesfx ami E'jys of North American Birdti, 

 1889, p. 168) describing them from the account 

 in The Aiik, above referred to, says: "The 

 color of one is light brown, nearly obscured 

 by large blotches of dark and reddish-brown; 

 another has a dirty white ground color, with 

 spots and blotches of various shades of brown, 

 which become smaller and fewer at the 

 smaller end. It resembles the common varie- 

 ties of eggs of the European Sparrow Hawk 

 (Acdpiter nisui<). The third is of a greenish- 

 white; over the smaller end are scrawls, lines, 

 and a few spots of light and dark brown," 



The set now before me, (which as above 

 stated, is the second one known in any collec- 

 tion), I have recently received, and their great 

 rarity as well as tlieir beauty seems to war- 

 rant their description in these pages. 



The nest was located in March, 1890, at 

 Bonnet Lake, Lee County, Florida. It was 

 built in a willow tree, and was constructed of 

 twigs of that tree. The tree stood in a 

 swamp, and the mud and water were waist 

 deep, so that it was only after hard work, 

 wading through the swamp, that the nest 

 was reached. 



The eggs, two in number, were taken April 

 23, 1890, and incubation was so far advanced 

 that it wasadifticult job to prepare them at all. 

 The bird was on the nest when they were taken. 



They are ovate in shape, with rounded ends 

 and no perceptible point, although one end 

 is smaller than the other. In general appear- 

 ance they bear a strong resemblance to light 

 colored eggs of the White-tailed Kite (Elanii.s 

 leurnrKs) but they are of course much larger 

 than the latter. Tlieir ground color is a 

 dull white, very thickly spotted and splashed 

 witii small blotches of burnt umber and tawny 

 olive. Tlie markings on one egg are thicker 

 than on the other, and this one is more heavily 

 marked at the larger end. The more lightly 

 marked egg, on the the contrary, has more 

 markings grouped around the smaller end. 

 They are very handsome eggs, and measure 

 l.SC, X 1.42: and 1.81 x 1.4:^.. J. P. N. 



