173 



THE OOLOGIST. 



ing of a set of them. They were taken 

 on July 24 of this year. He writes: 



"We left Sinaloa, Mexico, at 5 a. m. 

 on the 23d of July. The pack mules 

 were started, but it had taken so long 

 to get them off that we decided to take 

 lunch before leaving. After lunch we 

 went down to the river and were fer- 

 ried across, while the mules were re- 

 quired to swim. Our afternoon ride 

 was a pleasant one and we enjoyed it 

 hugely. It was through a rather low 

 growth of all sorts of strange trees. 

 There were giant cacti of various kinds, 

 several varieties of prickly pear and 

 many climbing vines. At frequent in- 

 tervals we came to native dwellings, as 

 poor as they could be to be called shel- 

 ters, the sides made of brush and the 

 top thatched with palm leaves. 



"I never elsewhere saw so many tar- 

 antulas. Their holes lined the sides of 

 the road, and occasionally one would 

 stick his front feet out as we went by. 

 Before night came on our mules showed 

 signs of fatigue, though we had traveled 

 slowly. Toward evening we struck the 

 first creek of any importance, by the 

 side of which the ratives were starting 

 to cultivate corn. The temperature was 

 about the same as that in a moist hot 

 house It was just as the sun was set- 

 ling that we rode into a little village of 

 thatched houses. We put our cots un- 

 der a shed and tried to get some sleep, 

 but it was rather a failure, for the bur- 

 ros kept up a braying to each other 

 through the entire night. I put in only 

 about an hour's sleep for the night. 



"Our mozos was up at 4 a.m. and fed 

 the mules, and by 6:30 we were off on 

 the road. It was like a moist hot house 

 all morning. The trail wa-^ a pretty 

 one, Winding beSide an arroyo with 

 large trees and very dense foliage all 

 around. Here and there we would pass 

 patches of bananas, mangoes and sugar 

 ■cane, with a little thatched cottage in 

 the grove generally shaded by an orange 

 tree. As we were riding along a stony 



bit of trail, always on the lookout for 

 curios, my eyes caught sight of a bird 

 which interested me. There are lots of 

 large green and blue parrots to be seen 

 along the trail, and another bird of bril- 

 liant red, green, black and white plum- 

 age. I saw one of the latter disappear 

 behind a stump, and on riding up to it 

 she flew out of a hole in the stump. I 

 looked in the cavity and found her nest 

 of eggs. I did not see how she got in 

 there, for her tail was as long as the 

 hole was deep. I think she must have 

 left it at the entrance and put it on 

 again when she went out. My old spirit 

 of collecting birds' eggs got the better 

 of me, and out the eggs had to come. 

 They were fresh, and I blew them and 

 put them back in the nest, covered them- 

 with leaves, sticks and stones and left 

 them until my return trip some weeks 

 later." 



The native name of this bird is Coa or 

 Cola, but the A. O. U. knows it as the 

 Coppery-tailed Trogon. 



The eggs are pure white, about as 

 dull in color as a pigeon egg, and either 

 two or four in number. 



R. P. Sharples, 

 West Chester, Pa. 



Mr. Richard C. McGregor of the U. 

 S. S. "Pathfinder" under date of Aug- 

 ust 16th, in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, 

 writes: "I have some little time for 

 birds, etc., here. Have put up plenty 

 of skins of Aleutian Leucosticte, Sand- 

 wich Sparrow and Aleutian Song Spar- 

 row besides a few other species. Have 

 eggs of Nelson's Ptarmigan, Fork-tailed 

 Petrel, Sandwich Sparrow, Green- 

 winged Teal and some coriimon things. 



