26 



THE 00LO6IS1 



test part of the day, and in the early 

 twilight, and I have heard him issue 

 as many as twenty bursts of song 

 during ore spell on the nest, and 

 have discovered the nest on more than 

 one occasion by the sweetly modu- 

 lated tell-tale song. 



These species are all the birds I have 

 found to sing while on the nest. 



Morris Gibbs, 

 Kalamazi, Mich. 



Field Notes from Manitoba. 



While reading the articles in the Jan. 

 1901 OoLOGiST I noticed an article on 

 the use of old nests, which suggested to 

 me, adding a few notes on my experi- 

 ence regarding the use of old nests by 

 Hawks and Owls. 



Before I became a resident of this 

 glorious western continent, from my 

 early boyhood days, I could find no 

 greater ecjoyment than a ramble in the 

 woods, laries and fields of old England, 

 and I found many a set of Sparrow 

 Hawk, Kestrel and one each of the Mer- 

 lin, Hobby and Long-eared Owl. All 

 these gala days are as fresh in my mem- 

 ory as if they had happened but a week 

 or 80 ago, and I well remember with 

 what joy I returned home with my first 

 set of four beautiful Sparrow Hawk's 

 eggs taken from a nest in a larch (tam- 

 arac) wood. How long I watched that 

 nest. Five weeks elapsed from the 

 time I found it until I finally brought 

 home the set of four eggs. The nest 

 was built by the birds themselves and 

 was a large flat structure of larch twigs 

 in a shallow depression of which lay the 

 prettiest set of Sparrow Hawk's eggs I 

 ever was fortunate enough to find. 

 Many a set of Sparrow Hawk's eggs 1 

 took after that but I never got another 

 set one-half so handsome. 



Again, quite fresh in my memory is 

 the chalk quarry in Lincolnshire where 

 I flushed a Merlin from her nest on my 

 return home from a day's collecting, 



and how on the following evening with 

 my brother and an oolojjical friend and 

 a wagon rope I came back determined 

 to add to my collection a new species of 

 eggs. The rope . made fast to a stake 

 well driven in the ground I descended 

 and there in a slight depression on a 

 ledge in the chalk cliff resting on a bed 

 of a few blades of withered grass I es- 

 pied a lovely set of five Merlin eggs. 



On another fine May day I visited a 

 larch wr>nd at a distance from home, 

 and in a tall pine from the very top I 

 took from a Crow's nest I had robbed 

 but two weeks previously a handsome 

 set of Hobby's eggs and in descending 

 unfortunately broke one of them. 



But it it about the nests of our own 

 Manitoba that I intended to write so 

 must forget for the present these pleas 

 ant memories of boyhood days. It was 

 on the 15th day of June, 1887 that my 

 residence in the great West commenc- 

 ed, and I at once began to investigate, 

 although only in the last two yrars 

 have I been able to make a specialty of 

 oological rerearch. 



The first nest of the Red-tail I found 

 was found that summer. It was the 1st 

 of July and three well fledged young 

 birds were its occupants. The nest 

 was in a small oak 25 ft. up in a main 

 fork of the tree but I could not tell if it 

 was new or old as it had been occupied 

 so long. The next nest of this species 

 I examined was in a lone thorn tree 

 way out in the boundless prairie miles 

 from acy bush on the side of a creek 

 where the birds lived royally on the 

 marsh birds that abounded on the creek 

 and in the neighboring swamp. This 

 nest also contained three well fledged 

 young, and was used year after year 

 for four years to my certain knowledge. 

 This was from 1890 to 1894, the last 

 time I was at the place. I intend to 

 visit this place the coming spring to see 

 if the Hawks are still breeding there. 



In the spring of 1893 I went for a 

 ramble in the woods west of Carman. 



