10 



THE OOLOGIST. 



pieces of corn busks being the only gar- 

 niture added by the new residents. The 

 site was a lofty shagbark hickory on 

 the summit of a small slope covered by 

 five or six acres of thin woods, the nest 

 being visible from all sides as a sort of 

 watch-tower, a veritable crow's-nest of 

 observation. At night both birds were 

 frequently observed to sit side by side 

 on the nest when the place was first se- 

 lected, but later the female (apparent- 

 ly) would occupy the nest at night 

 while the other bird would take his 

 station on the obliquely ascending 

 branch below the nest near his mate. 

 On March 21 I visited the nest in 

 company with a boy who had volun- 

 teered to do the climbing, for those 

 who read my last article will remember 

 that I am not a success in that line. 

 My companion was raised in a river 

 bottom in Missouri and had had no ex- 

 perience with climbei's, but his practice 

 in coon hunting had qualified him for 

 the task before him and he showed no 

 hesitation in attempting the ascent, 

 preparing for it by removing his shoes 

 and coat, and biting off a luouthful of 

 the Missouri Twist he fished out of his 

 pocket. I gave him careful injunctions 

 about how to pack and lower the eggs, 

 and then took my place on the anxious 

 seat while he clambered up a grape- 

 vine which partially entwined the trunk 

 for about thirty feet and was anchored 

 to a strong branch at -that height, 

 where the real work of climbing would 

 begin, the trunk being too lai'ge to as- 

 sist him in the ascent below the dis- 

 tance mentioned. 



On reaching the first limb and rest- 

 ing long enough to recover his wind he 

 pulled away the downward projecting 

 bark until he could advance to the next 

 favorable limb, and thus ascending he 

 soon reached the nest, which was plac- 

 ed in a fork of a branch ascending at 

 an angle of about forty-five degrees 

 from the main stem, the nest being 

 about eight feet out on this branch. 



Throwing his leg up over the edge of 

 the nest and looking into it he an- 

 nounced "two eggs," and prepared to 

 pack them according to the directions 

 I had given him. The cavity of the 

 nest was shallow, being one inch and a 

 half deep and ten inches across. Af- 

 ter lowering the eggs, he tied a knot in 

 the rope at the top of the nest, and 

 when afterward measured ^the distance 

 was found to be ninety-five feet. The 

 eggs were quite fresh, one measuring 

 2.44 by 1.90 inches, tbe other measur- 

 ing 2.42 by 1.95 inches. They are pale 

 bluish white and are fairly well marked 

 with irregular blotches of cinnamon 

 and cherry brown. One of the eggs is 

 marked more strongly on the half near 

 the larger end, while on the other egg 

 the spots ai'e more numerous on the 

 half ccntaining the smaller end. 



I wonder how many of the thousands 

 of readers of the Oologist are familiar 

 with the higher litexature of ornithol- 

 ogy, or of that class represented by 

 writers like Olive Thorne Millei", John 

 Burroughs and other sympathetic writ- 

 ers of birdlore. The latter mentioned 

 essayist is now being read and studied 

 by the school children of America and 

 the coming generation of ornithologists 

 will not be so easily deceived as this 

 one was, apparently, by the article in 

 the February Oologist entitled "De- 

 struction of Birds." To criticize the 

 production of a fellow-contributor may 

 not be in good taste, but there is an 

 unwritten law of ethics which should 

 reach anyone who imposes upon the 

 many as well as the one who deceives a 

 single individual. Not many months 

 ago I was pained to read that a well- 

 known collector, with whom I had ne- 

 gotiated several exchanges in the past 

 summer and whom I found perfectly 

 reliable and prompt, was regarded as a 

 fraud and his name was published as 

 such. He had probably imposed upon 

 a fellow collector in exchange, but 

 when a contributor to the Oologist im- 



