THE OOLOGIST. 



93 



it's Northern breeding places, the other 

 for the surrounding country. When the 

 apple blossoms are just in their prime, 

 with a true eye for the beauty of contrast 

 the Scarlet Tanagers and Rose-breasted 

 Grosbeaks come, catching flies from the 

 tops of the ti'ees. Bohemian Wax wings 

 tantalized me on Sunday morning when 

 I dared not shoot. It is surprising 

 to see how many of his favorites 

 the Warbler admirer could find 

 in haunts apparently unsuited to them. 

 During migrations Creepers, Nashville, 

 Yellow, Myrtle, Black-thr. Green, Oven 

 birds and Yellow-throats are abundant 

 while Tennessee, Golden-winged, Cape 

 May, Black-thr. Blue' Blackburnian, 

 Prairie, and Wilson's Warblers are not 

 so common but still not rare. Other 

 birds one would not expect are Ruby- 

 crowned Kinglets, Wood, Olive-backed 

 Gray-cheeked, and Hermit Thrushes. 



With all these who would despair of 

 a pleasant trip among his friends even 

 through fortune may frown on his 

 country attempts? 



Stewart E. White, 

 Grand Rapids, Kent Co., Mich. 



A Much Oocupied Nest. 



A rather peculiar case of the nesting 

 of birds came under my notice lately, 

 and I will try and tell the readers of 

 the Oologist about „it, hoping it may 

 be of interest to some. 



In a grove not far from the city a 

 pair of crows built a nest in the fork of 

 a tree early in April. Perhaps they 

 titted up some old hawks' nests; how- 

 ever that may be, they laid their com- 

 plement of five eggs which were immed- 

 iately secured by an enterprising young 

 oologist (?). 



Not long afterwards (about the 25th 

 of April) another friend while wander- 

 ing in the grove, shot a nice male Long- 

 eared Owl and shortly afterwards came 

 to the crow's nest on which Mrs. Long- 



ear was busily engaged. He "klim" 

 up and was rewarded with a set of four 

 fresh eggs. 



For some time this nest "of my tale" 

 had a rest but on May 6. a pair of Coop 

 er's Hawks were hanging around and 

 on the twelfth a set of four were taken 

 and the male, who was on the nest at 

 the time was shot. 



Again on May 22d while I was collect- 

 ing Warblers in the same patch, I 

 noticed a Broad-winged Hawk sail 

 around over the trees and thought I 

 would take a look at the nest. After 

 an easy climb I found one egg of the 

 Broad-wing. Afraid to leave this I 

 substituted a hen's egg in its place and 

 went out two days later and got an- 

 other, adding another hen's egg decora- 

 ted with umber "spots" and "blotches." 



Two days later I went out again and 

 found that some enterprising oologist 

 had taken the "decoys" and killed one 

 of the birds. I heard later an amateur 

 egg-collector who does it for the "fun" 

 of the thing, relate in glowing terms of 

 the taking of an incompleted set of 

 Broad-winged Hawk's eggs on which 

 the spots washed out, but he added, I 

 have positive identity because I "nail- 

 ed" the bird! 



About the middle of June the nest 

 was again occupied by a pair of crows, 

 probably by some birds who had lost 

 their first set, these birds only laying 

 three eggs. Not visiting the nest any 

 more I am unable to say positively 

 what happened. However ^heard that 

 the young birds had been taken by 

 some farmer boys for pets. 



Now the only thing needed for this 

 story to make it a "whopper" was for a 

 Horned Owl and then a Red-tailed 

 Hawk to have occupied in turn before 

 the Long-eared Owl, but truth forbids. 

 The nest still stands and I hope will 

 yield more sets the coming spring. 

 Phalaropus, 

 Minneapolis, Minn. 



