The Oologist. 



vol. XI. NO. 11. 



ALBION, N. Y., NOV., 1894. 



Whole No. 109 



The Study of Bird Life. 



Persistence and patience are prime 

 essentials to success in the study of 

 bird life. The successful student of 

 birds must be a constant rambler of 

 field and forest, a patient observer in 

 meadow, grove and orchard, along 

 hedgerows and highways, and in shad- 

 ed nooks by lakes and streams. The 

 same beaten path will be productive of 

 new facts every time it is traveled with 

 open eyes and ears. If you have tried 

 nest and egg collecting, there were 

 doubtless many orchards, thickets or 

 pieces of hedge which you believed you 

 had explored carefully, yet a walk 

 through the same localities late in aut- 

 umn after the leaves had fallen, would 

 have disclosed to you many nests that 

 had escaped your keenest search. As 

 you pass along the street to schojl on 

 winter mornings, you can see among 

 the bare boughs over your head old 

 nests which you perhaps passed daily 

 in the nesting season without discover- 

 ing, t.iough you thought at the time 

 that you were wide awake for every 

 tenement of your feathered neighbors. 



Only those who have attempted to 

 discover the secrets of nature know 

 how easily may be overlooked the ob- 

 jects of one's search. In my earlier 

 days a pair of Wood Pewees had taken 

 up their quarters in a corner of a small 

 apple orchared and I desired to add 

 their nest and eggs to my collection. 

 After deciding that the nest was in one 

 of two contiguous trees, I spent several 

 hours of several different mornings in 

 looking for it. I finally found it almost 

 on a line with my eye, saddled upon 

 a horizontal branch under which 1 had 

 stooped many times in passing around 

 the tree. The Wood Pewees nest is 

 not an easy object to locate for its 



grayish materials form an excellent 

 mimicry to the supporting bnnch and 

 it may be mistaken for a knot by an in- 

 experienced observer. 



In the same orchard a pair of Red- 

 eyed Vireos attracted my notice by 

 their uneasiness when I approached a 

 particular spot. Having never exam- 

 ined a nest of this species, I began to 

 look for their home, which I had read 

 might be found suspended among the 

 outer twigs of orchard and shade trees. 

 I searched many minutes every day for 

 two weeks withont success. At length 

 I gave up the quest baffled and almost 

 convinced that I had been deluded con- 

 cerning the situation of the nest. Later 

 when peering upward to locate the nest 

 of an Orchard Oriole in an apple tree, 

 there before my eyes and not three feet 

 away, hung the object of my long 

 search, in such plain view that I mar- 

 velled at my passing it so many times 

 without observing it. It contained 

 young about a week old. Having found 

 that one at last, I discovered two others 

 the same day in the outer twigs of 

 maple trees along the street. When 

 von have once stumbled upon a new 

 bird or nest, you will be surprised at 

 the ease and frequency with which you 

 will afterwards find others of the same 

 species. 



The nesting of the Towhee or Che- 

 wink for a long. time was a mystery to 

 me. One day I accidentally flushed a 

 female from her nest among the sprouts 

 almost under my feet. The mystery- 

 was understood, for I found half a doz- 

 en other nests of this species within the 

 week. 



New facts are no more easily ascer- 

 tained in ornithology than in auy other- 

 science, and often only after a long 

 series of observations is some particu- 

 lar fact established or some old mis- 



