JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 23 



The cat plague breaks out at irregular periods in a locality and 

 numbers die off in spasms and convulsions. About the time of cut- 

 ting the adult teeth healthy cats brought from a distance into an 

 infected district have been known to die in a day or two. An 

 intelligent acquaintance thinks the cause is frequently, the felines 

 are fed on unsterilized milk, that is, they attend at milking time in 

 the cowbyres and get new milk, as from the udder and unstrained, 

 in a saucer kept there for the purpose, and lung tubercles may 

 possibly thereby result. Milk of ruminants seems a substituted 

 food for cats, being specialized carnivores. 



Scarcely any samples of the hermit thrush or even of the veery 

 are around us this year, and fewer individuals, strictly wood birds, 

 than ever before. Cause, perhaps, bush fires in later years and 

 extensive draining and clearing of swamp thickets ; yet the whipoor- 

 wills came in unthinned numbers to their time honored haunts, and 

 were very demonstrative by their weird vociferation in the warm 

 summer nights. 



A neighbour raided a hawk's nest last week. The old pair had 

 been making depredations on poultry near by. The nest contained 

 four young ones of various ages. One was just entering the pin 

 feather stage, with long^waving white down on the head and neck ; 

 two others nearly ready to depart from the nest, which was situated 

 in the main divide or bifurcation of a large red or swamp maple tree, 

 and it was rather a dangerous climb for the boy to get at the rap- 

 tores. Like the cuckoo, the female hawk is irregular in the time of 

 laying her brood of eggs, and it would seem that the warmth of the 

 earlier hatched young is utilized in lieu of the old ones constantly 

 sitting to the full incubating period. About five species of hawk 

 visit this district, that is, sharp skinned hawk, red tailed hawk, 

 coopers' hawk (so termed), the goshawk, small sparrow hawk (f. 

 sparxerious), and the kestrel, and occasionally the black hawk of the 

 Western States, which is known by its louder outcries resembling 

 the screams of a young pig when in difficulties. 



An acquaintance in this vicinity took a young crane (ardea 

 herodius) from the lofty nest in a tree in the midst of the herony, 

 where, for many summers, the big waders had been accustomed to 

 associate to the number of fifteen or more pairs in community for 

 nesting purposes. Being well fed and kindly treated, the young 



