Maicli, 1881.} 



AKD UULUUIST. 



3 



with the procct'ds of this work he obtaintnl 

 11 still lar-^'ci- aud better printiiij,^ press. 

 This his been used in the printing of '"The 

 OoiAUHST up to the publication of the first 

 four nuuibers of VoIuuh^ V; the last eight 

 nuiiilx'is of this volume have issued at the 

 othce of a regular printer; Mr. Jos. M. 

 Wade, the present editor and publisher, 

 li.iviug undertaken its continuation on a 

 l)asis which all lovers of the study will a]> 

 preciate and acknowledge. 



The Oologist 

 had nnich to con- 

 t e n d w i t h in 

 gaining its pres- 

 ent foothold, on 

 not only Ameri- 

 c.m, b\Tt foreign 

 ornithologists, 

 and especially 

 oologists. Its 

 list of subscri- 

 bers is necessari- 

 ly select. We 

 have been fre- 

 (juently remind- 

 ed of the rapid 

 i m ]) r o V e m e n t ■ ^;^^'- 

 that has gone on in the journal dur- 

 ing its career of six years : five volumes 

 only being published, one year being lost 

 in unavoidable suspensions from lack of 

 means and p itronage : and withall we take 

 pardonable pride in its growth, as evidenc- 

 ed by a comparison of number 1 of Vol- 

 ume VI with the corresponding number of 

 Volume I; and in expressing our desire 

 that it be mide the best journal of its kind 

 in the world, we must call to our aid the 

 experience of all working students in our 

 Held, and ask our superiors to aid us all 

 they can : for the editors of the journal, as 

 one of our fellow natxiralists has said, must 

 not be expected to know all about or- 

 nithology themselves, but must be able to 

 shape the collected information of others 

 and distribute it for the benetit of the sci- 

 ence. Descriptions of actual exju'rience and 

 obsdrvjition will be fully appreciated. 



"That Woodcock." 



At last, through the kindness of Mr. 

 Frar^k S. Wright, of Auburn. N. Y., we 

 are enabled to give the true history of the 

 wounded Woodccx'k with the stick through 

 its breast. Mr. Merrill, of Bangor, Maine, 

 the Taxidermist, w^ho mounted the bird, 

 writes to his friend as follows : — "On Octo- 

 ber 9th, 1880, I received a Woodcock in 

 the fiesh from a friend who shot the same 

 near this city. The breast of the bird was 



pierced by a stick 

 about five inches 

 long, not from 

 "Side to side^" as 

 stated by some 

 of the local pa- 

 pers, but from 

 the front through 

 the breast, oiit at 

 the side, and un- 

 der the wing, (as 

 our illustration, 

 dviwn by Mr. 

 Merrill, shows.) 

 The flesh of the 

 bird was but lit- 

 tle cut and had 

 entirely healed, as also had the skin, so 

 that the stick was fastened into the wound. 

 The growth of the bird had apparently been 

 stunted by the presence of the stick which 

 was a perfectly straight piece of the stalk 

 of Golden Rod or some growth of a like 

 nature. This shows that the bird must 

 havo been pierced by alighting on the 

 ground rather than by flying swiftly 

 through the trees and bein- transfixed by 

 a twig as the ct)mments of some of our 

 local papers suem to imply. — H. Merrill. 

 Scarlet Tan.\ger's NEST.-June 5th 1880 I 

 found a nest of the Scarlet Tanager con- 

 taining three eggs that were exactly like 

 those of the cow-bird. I should like to knov 

 if tJinager's eggs ever vary enough to resem- 

 ble those of the cow-bird, or is there anoth- 

 er instance of a bird's sitting on cow-bird's 

 eggs when there were none of her own in 

 the nest. M. K. Barnum. 



