188 



THE OOLOGIST. 



— have not been carried out systemati- 

 cally. What has been determined can 

 be stated concisely as follows: 



The animal food is much less in 

 quantity than the vegetable, and con- 

 sists entirely of insects and spiders. 

 The insects include grasshoppers, cat- 

 erpillars, beetles and ants, while the 

 vegetable food is composed of the pulp 

 of the larger fruits, as pears, plums, 

 apples, etc., together with large quanti- 

 ties of the seeds of berries of the smilax, 

 sumac, mulberry, bayberry, pokeberry, 

 black alder, red cedar Virginia creeper 

 and poison ivy. 



The writer will be pleased to receive 

 either authentic notes on the contents 

 of the stomachs of birds shot, or es- 

 tablished facts in regard to the food 

 supply of this bird, and will later em- 

 body them in a report, if sufficient data 

 can be procured to prepare an article 

 of value. The concluding paper will 

 deal with the Meadow Lark {Sturnella 

 magna.) 



An Example of Maternal Solicitude 



Many are the stories told in prose 

 and sung ia rhyme of maternal devo- 

 tion among animals and birds. So 

 strongly is the maternal instinct devel- 

 oped that it leads to acts of sublime 

 heroism that challenge the admiration 

 of the world. Then it has its amusing 

 side, as when a brooding hen will pa- 

 tiently incubate a china door knob 

 without one ray of suspicion of the 

 hoax being played upon her. 



An example of sublime, though re- 

 diculous devotion came under my ken 

 last summer which may be worth re- 

 counting. I made a professional visit 

 to one of our distant mining camps, 

 high up in the mountains. After my 

 patient's wants were ministered to. the 

 Superintendent, who knew of my pro- 

 pensity for robbing birds nests, called 

 one of the men and requested him to 



lead me to the nest of a Humming B'rd 

 that had been discovered a few days* 

 previously. The path led us up the 

 steep mountain- side about one-half 

 mile, through the dense white fir and 

 alder thicket. The nest was saddled 

 upon the body of a small fir, about four 

 feet from the ground. I was delighted 

 to find the bird at home and ready for 

 callers. She was a Calliope (Trochilus 

 Calliope) one of the rarer species with 

 us, and as my guide remarked that she 

 had been upon the nest three days pre- 

 viously, I felt sure that a fine set of 

 eggs would shortly be added to my cab- 

 inet. I gently shook the bush with the 

 intention of causing her to vacate Not 

 any vacate there. On the contrary, she 

 settled down into the nest with a sort 

 of fight-it-out-on-this-line-if it-takes-all- 

 summer air that was highly amusing,. 

 I then gently lifted her up by the beak 

 despite her scoldings. She dug her feet 

 into 1he lining of the nest in such a 

 manner that I feared to break the eggs 

 which I could not see, so was obliged to 

 desist.. Reversing the plan of battle, I 

 lifted her by the very brief condal ap- 

 pendage projecting above the rim of 

 the nest. This was too much of an in- 

 dignity for even an outraged hummer, 

 so with an angry buzz she took wing 

 and perched upon a tree not many 

 yards away. I looked down at my 

 treasures and no treasures were there. 

 Not an egg. A pretty little nest of 

 black moss and tree down but nothing 

 that would in the future add to the 

 bird population of Idaho. Maybe some 

 of your readers can tell me what that 

 bird had in her mind. If so, I will 

 gladly furnish stamps for I very much 

 desire to know. Yours ooloaically, 

 Chas. S. Moody. 

 Orotino, Idaho. 



T 



HIS PAPER is printed at the Book. 

 and Magazine Publishing House of 

 A. M. EDDY, Albion, N. Y. 



