306 



THE OOLOGIST. 



hardly possible to distinguish the sep- 

 arate cries. Even the piping of a sin- 

 gle bird would awaken the others into 

 giving vent to their cries, so that the 

 lake resounded from shore to shore. 



At nightfall, as I lay with my boat 

 well concealed in a tussock, waiting for 

 the passage of ducks, the rails seemed 

 to be very curious about my presence 

 there. Several would silently gather 

 around me«on all sides, somelimes com- 

 ing in dangerous proximity to the boat, 

 and upon my rising suddenly, they 

 would all scurry off with marvelous 

 swiftness, literally running on the wat- 

 er. 



On account of the larger game not 

 much attention is paid to them here, 

 however they are much h«nted by boys 

 along the creeks near the city, and are 

 familiarly styled "Water Rails.'' 



They remain about these marshes and 

 streams until tne first or second week 

 in October when they leave for a warm- 

 er climate. 



Audubon says, "they travel silently 

 and by night, and in a direct course, at 

 a height of only a few feet over our 

 broad [rivers or over level land when 

 their speed is such as is never manifest- 

 ed bythe^munder ordinary conditions." 

 Virginia Rail. The Virginia Rail 

 is not nearly so abundant here as the 

 Sora. r Their habits are in general simi- 

 lar, otherwise than the fact that the 

 former are of rare occurrence on the 

 streams here in the autumn. They 

 either migi'ate early or keep to their 

 retreats of the summer. 



The nests of both birds are often 

 built in the same places and are of 

 similar structure, though I have found 

 nests of the Virginia on the borders of 

 meadows some distance back from the 

 water One in particular was located 

 on the edge of what had been a pond a 

 few weeks earlier in the spring, but 

 was then completely dry and the near- 

 est water was at least a quarter of a 

 mile away. It was simply a hollow in 



a hummock of earth, lined with a few 

 grasses and well arched over. 



The complement of eggs is about the 

 same as that of the Sora and should not 

 be confounded with them as they are 

 different both in the shade of the back- 

 ground and in the color of the mark- 

 ings. 



Unlike the Sora Rail the bird in ques- 

 tion makes its presence known by an 

 occasional cry when one is intruding 

 near the nest and though she keeps 

 well hidden in the grass, she remains 

 in the vicinity of her eggs. 



H. M. Guilford, 

 Minneapolis, Minn. 



Unusual Nesting of the Sparrow Hawk. 



In the earlier part of May, I saw a 

 Sparrow Hawk leave a hole in one of 

 the banks of a small creek, near Red- 

 lands and on reaching it, I fcund 

 it to contain a set of four incubated 

 eggs which I took. The hole was about 

 15 feet from the ground and was 

 12 inches in depth and contamed no 

 nest at all except some sand scraped 

 from the side of the hole. During May 

 I took another set (4) from the same 

 hole, which however had been dug 

 deeper and a few feathers placed there- 

 in. I also took a set of ttrree from 

 anothor hole near the above mentioned 

 and from which I took a set of Red- 

 shafted Flicker's earlier in the season. 

 L. P. Williams, 

 Bedlands, Calif. 



Notes from Maine. 



June 5, 1893, I took a set of 4 Ameri- 

 can Ravens' eggs on No Man's Land 

 near Matinicus, Me. The eggs were all 

 rotten but the bird was still covering 

 them. The fishermen said that there 

 had been a nest on the same island for 

 several years but that the birds didn't 

 seem to increase. 



During the first week in July I saw 



