318 



THE OOLOGIST 



be likened to that of a Spotted Sand- 

 piper, though that species would have 

 liked a scantier growth. 



William B. Crispin. 

 Salem, N. J. 



There are but few authentic sets of 

 Five of this species known, and Mr. 

 Crispin is to be congratulated upon se- 

 curing such a prize. The foregoing 

 also shows what can be done by sys- 

 tematic, and continued effort. — Ed. 



Grasshopper And Lark Sparrows. 



(Coturniculus savannarum australis) 

 And (chondestes grammacus.) 



In years gone by, the Grasshopper 

 Sparrow was not uncommon, in fact at 

 one time it was abundant in the fields 

 which surrounded my home. Sudden- 

 ly they became very scarce and dur- 

 ing the years 1906, 7, 8 and 9 not one 

 nest was discovered although I .search- 

 ed continually during the nesting sea- 

 sons. The only birds noted during the 

 scarcity were on spring migrations 

 and these apparently all passed on to 

 the north as the fields were uninhabit- 

 ed and I never heard their familiar 

 insect, like call during those four long 

 summers. 



On arriving home from Switzerland 

 about the 15th of May, 1910, -I was 

 overjoyed to find that the birds had 

 returned in greater numbers than ever 

 before. Where they went during those 

 four years is a mystery to me, but 

 wherever they may have been there 

 was no "race suicide" for this year 

 their long drawn out "chip-chzeeeeep" 

 floats to ones ears from every side. 



I found my first nest of the season 

 on June 3. It was placed on the ground 

 in a thin hay field about twenty feet 

 from a stone wall. The birds must 

 have used every scrap of their energy 

 in the construction of this nest as the 

 bottom of the cup was fully an inch 

 and a quarter below the surface of 



the ground, the sod tough and very 

 dry. The eggs were two-thirds ad- 

 vanced in incubation but a little pa- 

 tience saved the precious set. On 

 June 6 I found a second set of five in 

 the same field. These were fresh. On 

 June 9 I ran across two more nests 

 while hunting for Bobolinks in a heavy 

 field of grass about eight miles from 

 where the first two nests were found. 

 One contained five young about seven 

 days old, and the other four young, 

 fully fledged, and one infertile egg. 



From the above observations it is 

 evident that the completement is 

 usually five and that May 15th would 

 be about the correct time to look for 

 fresh eggs. The nests are always 

 partly arched over and the entrance 

 invariably faces the sun! This being 

 the case with every nest that I have 

 ever found 



The composition of the nest is al- 

 ways the same, fine dead grasses; 

 weeds or hair seldom, if ever, being 

 used in construction. 



On June 10th of this year I was 

 searching for nests of this sparrow, in 

 Long Ridge, Conn. I was walking" 

 through a hay field and had almost 

 reached the wall at the edge of it, 

 when a bird flushed from the grass 

 within a few inches of my foot. A 

 short search revealed the nest, a plain 

 affair of grass and rootlets, but "Gee" 

 what have we here, four eggs unlike 

 those of any ground-nesting bird that 

 I ever ran across before! Retracing 

 my footsteps, I left the field for an 

 hour. On returning I nearly lost my 

 sences when the bird flushed again, 

 this time to light on a milk weed 

 stalk about fifteen feet away. I threw 

 my camera in a near by brook in my 

 excitement, for it was a Lark sparrow 

 in full breeding plumage, and there in 

 the grass, under my very nose lay 

 those four bluish, brown scrawled 



