36 



THE OOLOOIST. 



and the feats that he performs if re- 

 corded would only be believed by 

 others of equal powers. Climbing 

 smooth-barked sycamores of from six 

 to ten feet in circumference are easy 

 performances for him and I have seen 

 him ascend a tree five feet in diameter. 

 Not long since the tackle at the top of 

 our city weather-signal pole became 

 clogged and a big reward was offered 

 to anyone who would ascend the pole 

 and arrange the ropes. All the tele- 

 graph pole climbers in the city bluffed 

 at it, but Willhelm went to the top — 

 one hundred and thirty feet — arranged 

 the tackle and came down again in six 

 minutes. Not less than three thousand 

 people witnessed the performance. 



Of course it will be remarked that 

 such a climber would be valuable as a 

 collector of hawks' eggs, and it may be 

 said that his skill as a climber is a 

 direct result of his liking for eggs of 

 hawks and owls, and some of his scores 

 indicate his success in this line of col- 

 lecting. Perhaps his largest score is 

 one made during the past season, when 

 in a three days' float down the St. Jos 

 eph river, he collected one hundred and- 

 thirteen eggs of the Buteos. On single 

 days he has taken over fifty hawks' 

 eggs and I have seen him collect over 

 forty Cooper's and Red-shouldered's 

 eggs in ten hours. It must not be 

 thought that hawks' eggs are more 

 plentiful here than elsewhere, the point 

 of his success lying in his accurate 

 knowledge of the habits of the birds, 

 covering a large tract of territory in a 

 day and quick climbing. 



Many of his hawks' and owls' eggs 

 are blown with so small a hole that 

 nothing larger than a No. 10 shot pellet 

 will pass in and all are perfection; in 

 fact I have never yet seen so perfect a 

 collection as his. He has never added 

 to his collection by exchange or pur- 

 chase, preferring to collect all his sets 

 alone. 



Scolopax. 



Texas Notes. 



This locality is probably a very rich 

 ornithological field, but there seems to 

 be a scarcity of collectors here. 



Though during the last season, I 

 have had very little time to collect 

 eggs, I managed to spend the latter 

 part of the season in the observation of 

 the species here which are mostly new 

 to me, I having lived in Kansas for the 

 last nine years and just arriving in this 

 county at the beginning of the season. 



Among the birds which I noticed firs; 

 were the Nonpareils or Painted Bunt- 

 ings, the Roadrunners, Loggerhead 

 Shrikes and Scissor Tailed-flycatchers, 

 all of whom were new to me. The 

 Shrikes are unusually voracious and 

 will even dash into houses in their 

 attempts to kill canary and other cage 

 birds. The Loggerhead in striking a 

 bird in a cage usually manage to strike 

 it squarely on the neck, neai'ly sever- 

 ing the head from the body. One 

 raided a cage of my canaries early this 

 year, and was only killed after having 

 made way with one^ and seriously 

 wounding another. 



The birds which are most common 

 here are Turkey Buzzards, Mocking- 

 birds, Catbirds, Robins and Field 

 Larks, which are here by the thousands 

 at the present time. 



While boating on the Brazos, one 

 day, I noticed quite a number of 

 Herons, Cranes and other long-legged 

 birds, but could not get close enough 

 to find out definitely of what species 

 they were. 



I have also observed several species 

 of Hawks and Owls, and a solitary 

 White Pelican. 



I would like to hear more from Texas 

 collectors through the columns of the 



OOLOGIST. 



J. K. Strecker, Jr., 

 Waco, Tex. 



