44 THE OOLOGIST 
incident was repeated this year, when 
a collector of a friend of mine went to 
a nest that contained one egg. But 
alas, when he returned for the set, the 
egg was broken. At first I laid it to 
the crows, but now I am thoroughly 
convinced that the parent eagles are 
the guilty ones. 
My version of the affair is that their 
scent is very keen and they object to 
intruders. The nest when the egg was 
broken in 1906, was never touched by 
me, Bis nates 
I never. knew of any bird of prey 
whatever outside of the Bald Eagle 
that cared the least bit how you look- 
‘ed, felt, or pried around their nests. 
W. B. CRISPIN. 
A Virginia Rail Nesting. 
The Virginia Rail, although not gen- 
‘erally distributed throughout eastern 
Massachusetts, is found plentifully in 
‘several localities. _ They arrive from 
. the south about ‘the first of May, some- 
times earlier, and seem -to prefer 
Swamps containing thickets of low 
‘bushes overgrown ‘with vines and 
briars, rather than more open grassy 
marshes. By May 15th they have nests, 
and toward the last of the month 
broods of newly hatched young may be 
found. aye : 
On May 27, 1909 while collecting in 
the Fresh Pond Marshes of Cambridge, 
I came upon a pair of birds with a 
brood of young not much over twenty- 
four hours old. A wandering dog had 
already located the brood and had 
driven one of the young into a narrow 
runway. This runway was about six 
or seven feet long, was banked up 
strongly on each side with dense 
clumps of Cat-tails, and was too nar- 
row for the dog to enter, 
I took up my position at one end’ of 
the runway and waited, The dog would 
chase the young bird along in my di- 
rection, and as I reached over to pick 
it up, it would suddenly vanish. In a 
few moments it would re-appear, mak- 
ing its way back towards the dog. This 
Was repeated a number of times. Fre- 
quently the bird approached within a 
few inches of my hand when it would 
stop and crouch close to the ground, 
immediately becoming invisible. Had 
he remained quiet, he might easily 
have escaped, but at no time did he 
stay in one place longer than a few 
seconds. 
All this time the parents were trav- 
eling back and forth ‘through the cat- 
tails, now on one side, now on the 
other, but keeping well concealed, 
their constantly uttered “kiu’—a note 
resembling a similar one of the Flick- 
er, but less loud—only betraying their 
constantly changing position. 
At last the dog withdrew and [ lost 
sight of the young bird. He soon re- 
appeared twenty feet away, and I saw 
that if I was to procure him for a spe- 
cimen, which I desired to do, I would 
be obliged to shoot him, so when he 
next appeared momentarily, between 
an opening in the cat-tails I fired. A 
careful search failed to locate the bird, 
although it did not seem possible I 
had missed him. After some ten min- 
utes fruitless search I directed my at- 
tention to a small black lump about 
the size of my thumb, which lay half 
submerged in a puddle and which I 
had passed in my search, supposing it 
to be a lump of mud. This was my 
bird, but in the dim light of the 
swamp, close to the ground, among 
roots, mud, water and decaying vege- 
tation, it appeared as part of its sur- 
roundings and was easily overlooked. 
In size the young Rail was about 
as large aS a mouse, and was covered 
with soft down as dense as the fur of 
any aquatic animal; the color black, 
dull below, but of a glossy greenish on 
the head and back, Although the bird 
