THE OOLOGIST 



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one fresh egg but was water-soaked 

 and deserted. 



Nest number six was a well-built 

 structure of coarse blades fastened to 

 the surrounding grass stalks after the 

 manner of the Soras' nests. It was 

 just above water about one inch in 

 depth; contained one addled egg and 

 some fine bits of shell. The young had 

 hatched and gone. 



Nest number seven was found June 

 17th in the same ravine, same compo- 

 sition and situation as number six, but 

 the water was two inches deep. The 

 young had hatched and gone also. Af- 

 ter finding this nest I concluded that 

 further search was useless. However, 

 I was destined to learn, accidentally, 

 still a little more, during June, 1900, 

 about the nesting of the little Rails. 



Nest number eight which I found on 

 June 24th was out in the big coulee. I 

 was crossing a little hay meadow from 

 which the hay had been removed in 

 1899, when I caught sight of egg shells 

 lying on the ground. Examination 

 showed them to be those of the Yellow 

 Rail from which young had hatched. 

 In another moment I spied the nest. 

 There was no dead grass here and the 

 green blades had been pulled down 

 and fastened about the nest, thus 

 forming a green screen over it. The 

 nest was a rather thin affair of dead 

 blades, placed on the damp ground. 



I had been under so strong an im- 

 pression that the nests of these birds 

 would be found only in places where 

 there was plenty of dead grass to af- 

 ford concealment that I hadn't thought 

 of searching the "cleaner" areas. 



In 1901 and 1902 I had no chance to 

 visit Dakota but the season of 1903 

 found me again on the ground and on 

 May 30th, I found two nests in the lit- 

 tle meadow in the coulee. 



Nest number nine containing one 

 egg was found underneath a small 

 bunch of hay which lay on the old 

 stubble. Ground just wet and soggy. 



Nest number ten just ready for eggs 

 was found underneath a bunch of 

 prone dead grass missed by the mow- 

 er the previous year. Ground just 

 damp and soggy. 



Visiting number nine on June 1st, I 

 found it to contain three eggs. On the 

 4th, number ten contained five eggs. 

 The nests were examined on June 8th 

 when number nine was found empty 

 and number ten contained only the 

 broken shells of five eggs, so here 

 again when success seemed so near 

 I was doomed to a bitter disappoint- 

 ment. 



It was not until June 18th that I se- 

 cured my first full set. On this date 

 I began by making a careful search in 

 the vicinity of the sites of nests nine 

 and ten in the hope of finding some 

 signs of second nesting, but nothing in 

 the way of a nest showed up. Near 

 the site of number ten I found three 

 more eggs lying on the ground. These 

 three were undoubtedly the remainder 

 of that set. 



Nest number eleven was my lucky 

 find. After I had about given up 

 hope, in the outskirts of the meadow, 

 outside the damper, soggier portion, I 

 suddenly found myself looking down 

 upon a beautiful set of nine eggs. The 

 nest was of coarse, dead blades mostly, 

 and placed upon the ground in a rather 

 thick bunch of growing grass. There 

 was no dead grass about and no can- 

 opy over the nest, the ends of the 

 green blades simply hanging loosely 

 together a foot or more above it. 



In June, 1905, I again spent a few 

 days on the grounds but no nests of 

 the Yellow Rail were found. My next 

 visit was in 1908 and on May 27th of 

 that year in the wet, soggy portion of 

 the meadow I found nest number 

 twelve containing three eggs. It was 

 placed on the ground and concealed 

 by a canopy of dead grass. 



On June 2d I concluded to take no 

 further chances of loss so I secured 



