THE OOLOGIST. 



•dense growths of grass and canebrake, 

 the latter, often ten feet high. But here 

 the musk-rats have mown their timber 

 for years. It lies yard measure deep 

 in some spots. There jnst beyond me 

 is an open space, twenty feet square 

 maybe, and well shut in with the drift 

 and wrack piled deep above the very 

 shallow water. And hear to one side, 

 is a mound of material, three feet 

 across and eight inches elevated, of 

 ;grass and reed stems and flag stems 

 and grey down and in its center (a hol- 

 low, wash-bowl size) are four great 

 white eggs! What! a nest of the Cana- 

 da Goose, not five miles, as the Herons 

 fly, from the sound of clicking type- 

 writers, and of the parsing of Greek 

 verbs, from the bustle and the routine 

 school life and of "actual business?" A 

 nest of the Canada Goose and the moth- 

 er bird is dead! Thus my personally 

 taken set of Canada Goose eggs were 

 laid by perhaps the last pair of these 

 birds to breed at Heron Lake. 



I press to the farther margin of the 

 island to get a shot at that flock of 

 Ducks. There they are, thick together, 

 I raise my gun, suddenly a boat prow 

 eclipses half the flock and a disappoint- 

 ed city sportsman gathered in his de- 

 coys. "Hello," I cried. "What?" 

 [shortly] "Your Goose fell dead over 

 yonder!" "I know it!" [snappishly]. 

 So I went on alone to find the bird, whose 

 mate, incessantly calling, betrayed the 

 place where she fell. 



Ten minutes hard wading in the shal- 

 lows, away yonder is the bereaved gan- 

 der, off he goes, and his dead mate 

 briskly follows! And so is ruined a 

 pathetic story. Two other nests were 

 later found, containing eggs and I my- 

 self in June discovered, on a rat-house, 

 the depth of the wilderness of grass and 

 cane, a deserted nest, the young hatched 

 and gone and a single egg of Forster's 

 Tern reposing in a hollow in the very 

 middle of the nest. Later still I flushed 

 fourteen old Geese in one flock. Wary 



birds, the wai'iest of the wary, may they 

 here long breed aud prosper! 



But now to my notes again. April 

 18th a pair of Loons arrived in the lit- 

 tle lake across the railroad track from 

 my house. They staid a week. 



April 14th the Greater Yellow-legs be- 

 gan (o appear in the grassy pools. 

 Four days later their lesser cousins be- 

 gan to arrive. Both kinds grew more 

 abundant until the middle of May w T hen 

 they practically disappeared. 



Aoril 18th found me at the Lake 

 again. A few Red-heads; a Pintail or 

 two; a pair of Marbled Godwits; and 

 scattered "wisps" of Pectoral and Semi- 

 palmated Sandpiper, were among the 

 species uewly seen. 



The last of April, American Bitterns 

 began to be heard booming in the 

 marshes. Then on May 3d came the 

 Franklin Gulls, all at once, fifty in the 

 first flock I saw. What charming, soc- 

 iable, Swallow-like birds! Why have 

 not the men who have taken their eggs 

 by the hundred told us somewhat of 



their "life histories?" 



P. B. Peabody. 



(TO BE CONTINUED.) 



Some Experience with the Young of the 

 Ruffed Grouse and Boh White. 



(part i ) 



To those who reverence Nature and 

 learn to worship through her teachings, 

 it must always seem a lovely circum- 

 stance that the inherent fear, the way- 

 ward disposition in the wild bird and 

 mammal alike, yield to domestication 

 only through the agencies of kindness 

 and of patience. 



To domesticate, we must first gradu- 

 ally gain confidence from the wild spir- 

 it of the individual in hand, and then, 

 through many succeeding generations, 

 by painstaking care, I might say by 

 love, must instill into the being of the 

 once fearful species, the trust and feel- 

 ing of fellowship which such environ- 

 ment usually inspires. 



