THE OOIiOGIST 



71 



usual set, should nothing disturb the 

 birds. 



The earliest date upon which I found 

 a full set of eggs was May 5; the latest 

 May 22; the last date undoubtedly be- 

 ing for a second nest of a pair that had 

 been disturbed upon the first attempt 

 at nesting. Sets are usually complet- 

 ed by the 10th. Each season many 

 nests are either blown out by high 

 wind storms, or water soaked by ex- 

 cessive rains and deserted. As an in- 

 stance of this, I cite my note of last 

 season. At that time I located up- 

 wards of forty nests and but twelve 

 of them remained after a severe wind 

 storm swept our county. I once found 

 a nest of the gnatcatcher built twenty 

 feet above the ground in an upright 

 crotch of an American elm tree. I 

 reached up and removed the nest, and, 

 finding that it held but four eggs, I re- 

 placed it securely in the crotch. Up- 

 on returning to the place in a few 

 days I found the bird patiently sitting 

 upon the four eggs. This case, how- 

 ever, must be considered quite excep- 

 tional, for usually nests disturbed, even 

 touched, will be deserted. The birds 

 also desert their homes in case they 

 become soaked with rains. I have sev- 

 eral times noticed birds moving an 

 abandoned nest and rebuilding it in a 

 new site. 



My earliest observation of nest of 

 the gnatcatcher was in May, 1903. 

 The first nest held five slightly incu- 

 bated eggs on the 10th. It was built 

 25 feet up in a fork of a butternut 

 tree that stood on the border of a 

 small wood that lay on a hillside; one 

 side of it run a valley. The second, 

 and last nest for the year, was found 

 on the 13th and held five fresh eggs. 

 It was build on a horizontal branch of 

 a white oak tree which stood in a 

 small woods on a hillside. An excep- 

 tional nest, found in 1904, was built 

 just seven feet above the ground in an 



upright crotch of the branch of a fal- 

 len yellow locust tree. This tree lay 

 at the lower border of a large woods 

 and was surrounded by saplings and 

 briers. The bird laid but three eggs 

 and started to incubate them. Since 

 finding the preceding nests I have ex- 

 amined a number and of course the 

 situations varied widely. Nests were 

 mostly located by watching and fol- 

 lowing the birds during the nest-build- 

 ing time. The average measurements 

 for a number of eggs examined by me 

 is: .56x.43 inches. The largest— .60 

 x.47; the smallest — .52 x .41. The 

 eggs are of a light greenish-blue color 

 and are speckled or wreathed with 

 reddish-brown. 



S. S. Dickey. 



Night Hawks and Fying Ants. 



One day toward evening a few sum- 

 mers ago, as I was walking across the 

 fields, I noticed a number of Night 

 Hawks circling about a ditch. They 

 appeared to be getting an early supper 

 and I thought I would see what was 

 the bill of fare. On getting quite close 

 to the place I noticed that flying ants 

 were rising from the ditch bank. They 

 were the queen ants which had hatch- 

 ed out and were flying away, accord- 

 ing to the life history of ants, to de- 

 posit their eggs in some suitable place, 

 and start another ant hill. They are 

 a nuisance in the fields for nothing 

 can grow near an ant hill. 



I would see an ant rise a few feet in 

 the air then a night hawk would sail 

 along its path from behind and the ant 

 was gone. I moved closer and some- 

 times the ant was so near me when 

 the night hawk came along that I 

 could hear it strike the mouth of the 

 night hawk. I do not think I ever saw 

 a night hawk miss an ant as it circled 

 by. This is only another instance of 

 the benefit of birds to agriculture. 



Geo. E. Osterhout. 

 Windsor, Colorado. 



