166 



THE OOLOGIST 



E. J. Darlington. 



George B. Bonners, than whom 

 there is no better oologist in the 

 country, has this to say of Mr. Dar- 

 lington in his letter under date of 

 September 18th: 



"I am glad you spoke so well of 

 Darlington. I knew him well, and 

 was to have paid him a visit the day 

 he died. I see Sharpies has said nice 

 things about him, and I know of a 

 host of others who think the same of 

 him. We Old Oologists are slowly but 

 surely going to the Happy Hunting 

 Grounds. I think I can class myself 

 among the old ones, as I made a trip 

 to Texas after Golden-checked War- 

 blers and Black-capped Vireos in 1884, 

 and have been collecting ever since." 



Odd Nesting of the American 

 Merganser. 



During the spring months of the 

 current year (1915) I was attached to 

 the U. S. S. "Tuscarora" doing gen- 

 eral cruising duty on Lakes Michigan 

 and Superior. Much of our work took 

 us into the small ports on the upper 

 shore of Wisconsin, and it was on 

 June 6th that we stood in and dropped 

 the hook in the little haven of refuse 

 called Hailey's Harbor at the extreme 

 end of Wisconsin near the entrance 

 to Green Bay, a bay with a tOAvn in 

 the bight of the same name, and con- 

 sisting of a mere cluster of fishing 

 shacks and a U. S. Coast Guard Sta- 

 tion. No railroads of any kind traverse 

 this country, so it is practically un- 

 inhabited and is perhaps one of the 

 wildest portions of the state. 



As we steamed into the harbor the 

 wooded shores and occasional sandy 

 bars of the neighboring islands at the 

 entrance appealed to me from an 

 ornithological standpoint, especially 

 so as I saw the gulls and terns hover- 

 ing about the beaches and here and 

 there a duck winging his way into 



the trees. In short things looked good 

 for breeding places for all of the 

 above and I made up my mind that 

 a little excursion ashore here might 

 prove quite interesting. So a few 

 hours before sundown I, together with 

 a few men who wished to try their 

 hand at fishing while I was ashore, 

 rowed in and landed on the most east- 

 erly of the islands, a small stretch 

 of land which was more conspicuous 

 than the others of the group due to 

 its having on its outmost point an 

 old tower of what was once a light- 

 house. It was a quaint old tower and 

 curiosity at once drew me in that 

 direction. It was situated in a grassy 

 clearing about a hundred feet from 

 shore and I soon walked over and 

 peered thru the single doorway of 

 the tower. 



Here the unexpected happened. No 

 sooner was my body in the doorway 

 than a large bird darted from the op- 

 posite side of the brickwork and half 

 running and half flying struck me 

 "amidships" in its wild efforts to 

 make the open. It was with some dif- 

 ficulty that I was able to secure a 

 hold of Mrs. Merganser (for so it 

 proved to be) but I finally accom- 

 plished this and then proceeded with 

 my prize over the door sill to discover 

 the cause of this attempted exit on 

 the part of the duck. It was easily 

 found. Diametrically opposite the door- 

 way and spaced about three feet apart 

 were two wonderfully soft nests of 

 the American Merganser, the eggs 

 they contained being almost hid by 

 the gray and white down of which 

 the nests were entirely composed. 

 Each nest was placed in a depression, 

 perhaps five inches deep, scraped out 

 of the soft dirt of the light-house 

 floor and were about fourteen inches 

 across. One nest contained ten eggs 

 and the other seventeen eggs, and as 

 the letter were quite warm they un." 



