THE OOLOQIST. 



91 



sat down on the edge of the hank near 

 the brook in order to see if the female 

 would return to her nest; I waited for 

 nearly fifteen minutes ibefore she fin- 

 ally quieted down and after all was 

 ■quiet flew down in the grass where 

 she disappeared, after waiting for 

 five minutes and hearing nothing from 

 ier, I suspected she must be on her 

 nest. So quietly stepping over to the 

 spot from whence she disappeared, 

 She slipped off her nest and ran 

 mouse-like along the ground and flew 

 into a bush from where she began 

 scolding me as before. I gently part- 

 ed the grass with my hand and reveal- 

 led a beautiful nest sunken in the 

 ground made of dry grass lined with 

 liair and arched over which contain- 

 ed four white eggs, speckled with 

 brown, that were partly incubated. 

 That same day I found two more of 

 their nests. While searching every 

 tuft of gras's at a time within my 

 reach (the yellow-throats scolded me 

 all the while from some nearby 

 "bushes). I discovered a nest, it was 

 not sunken in the ground and arched 

 over as the other nest was, but was 

 l)uilt about two inches above the 

 ground in the center of a large tuft 

 of grass, while two yards away I 

 lound another nest in a tuft of grass. 

 Thei' each contained four eggs, incu- 

 "bation had just begun. 

 Signed, 

 GEORGE GERALD. 



The Starling in Pennsylvania — By 

 Richard F. Miller. 



Early in November, 1907, a gunner 

 shot two Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) 

 on the Delaware river marshes at 

 Tacony, Phiadelphia county, Pa. The 

 writer examined one of them, a fine 

 male, in the shop of a local taxider- 

 mist. 



They were not escaped cage birds, 



but had come westward from the vi- 

 cinity of New York City with a flock 

 of Blackbirds. This is my theory of 

 their occurrence which is' evidently 

 the correct one. 



It is well known that the Starling 

 is inceasing and spreading through- 

 out New Jersey from the vicinity of 

 New York City, but these are the first 

 birds to reach Pennsylvania to my 

 knowledge. 



A Few Observations on Eggs of Gar- 

 ter Snake, Thamnophis sirtelis, 

 var. ordinatus. 



On May 16th, this year, the Editor 

 of the Oologist captured and dissect- 

 ed a very large female of this species, 

 length 39 inches. 



Prof. Surface in his excellent "Ser- 

 pents of Penn." gives them as ovivivi- 

 parous. Eggs forming in May and 

 young maturing to the point where 

 they are ejected by the mother ready 

 to break the membranous shell in 

 middle of July to first of August. 



Now my Snake contained many 

 more eggs than the authorities give 

 some hardly developed to the stage 

 where they could be counted to a cer- 

 tainty, but 84 well developed eggs 

 were found, and futhermore they were 

 not developing together. 



Some were just forming and they 

 ranged from these up to an egg IVz 

 in. long containing a well developed 

 snake over 4 in. long that must have 

 been expelled soon, probably before 

 June 1st, certainly long before July. 



The Snake had met with an acci- 

 dent in the past as indicated by three 

 scars on outside of body and in one 

 ovary was an encysted, dried up, dead 

 young located under one of the scars. 

 Evidently case was ruptured and 

 young killed but was encysted and 

 dried up without causing serious 

 trouble. 



Either this is an unusual case or 



