THE OOLOGIST 



177 



and pay no attention to their ever 

 present enemies along this line. Tame 

 Pigeons and particularly English Spar- 

 rows, flying as they do in droves from 

 one infected pen to another, and from 

 one farm to another carry a thousand 

 per cent, more disease, both hog 

 cholera and foot and mouth disease 

 than all the Buzzards put together. To 

 this fact the farmer should wake up 

 and should protect his friend the Buz- 

 zard and destroy his enemy, the Eng- 

 lish Sparrow, and do away with the 

 unnecessary and dirty pigeons about 

 his place. By so doing, the average 

 agriculturist engaged in stock raising 

 will increase his bank account, add to 

 his self respect and turn his gun into 

 a beneficial instead of a destructive 

 instrument. — R. M. B. 



Arkansas Kingbird. 

 (Tyrannus verticalus) 



This abundant Flycatcher is one of 

 the most interesting of the family. In 

 South Dakota, they are even more 

 numerous than the common Kingbird, 

 and nearly every tree along the road- 

 side contains a nest of one or the 

 other. I have found ten nests of the 

 Western Kingbird in a small open 

 grove of about two acres. 



Cottonwood trees in small groves 

 or by the roadsides, and willows 

 around the marshy places are ideal 

 nesting sites, but Box Elders are of- 

 ten selected also. They often choose 

 some very unusual nesting places al 

 so. I have several records of their 

 nesting in windmills. The nests be- 

 ing placed either in the woodwork or 

 in the gearing at the top. In one case 

 both eastern and Arkansas Kingbird 

 had nests in the same mill. 



A typical nest is composed of 

 weeds, twine, rags, and twigs, thickly 

 lined with hair, feathers and wool. 

 Four or Ave eggs are the usual num- 

 ber, but sets of three are common. 



The first migrants arrived May 7, 

 1910 and May 6, 1911. 



First nesting dates are June 10, 

 1909, June 4, 1910, and June 4, 1911. 

 Alex Walker. 



The Bald Eagle. 

 The September.-October, 1915 num- 

 ber of Bird Lcre, contains the Nation- 

 al Association of Audubon Societies 

 Leaflet No. 82, on the "Bald Eagle", 

 by T. Gilbert Pearson. He leaves the 

 reader or student with the impression 

 that the Bald Eagle while being an 

 expert at catching waterfowl, cannot 

 catch the members of the Grebe fam- 

 ily, by suggesting a Pied-billed Grebe 

 found by him on an Eagle's nest on 

 one occasion, "had been picked up 

 dead." I wish to correct this im- 

 pression if possible. On February 16, 

 1913, the late William B. Crippen and 

 I took from a nest of the Bald Eagles, 

 (Haliaeetus-lencoaphalus), in York 

 County, Virginia, two Pied- billed 

 Grebes and a part of a Lesser Scoup 

 Duck. The nest was in a live pine 

 tree in a swamp, about 85 feet up and 

 also contained two young Eagles, 

 about four and five days old. One 

 Grebe had been dead about two or 

 three hours and the other had just 

 been caught and brought to the nest 

 the last trip, before we drove the par- 

 ent bird off, that was hovering the 

 young eaglets. The latter bird was 

 still warm and had fresh blood on 

 the head and in the beak and while 

 the weather was very cold that morn- 

 ing, it had not coagulated. An exam- 

 ination of both birds shows only two 

 small nail, marks on each side of the 

 Grebe's head, which had caused death. 

 Both Grebes were plucked as clean as 

 any person could pluck a water fowl 

 without singeing the small hair-like 

 similar to those on the bacmfwayopi 

 feathers below the "down," being sim- 

 ilar to those on the back of a man's 

 hand. I have never seen a better 

 piece of water fowl plucking by any 



