THE OOLOGIST 



63 



made me seek the high altitude about 

 May 15th, and in company with my 

 father, who is still very much an ac- 

 tive collector, we settled in a hereto- 

 fore unworked section at 4500 ft. alti- 

 tude. We were a little late for first 

 sets of Junco, the majority having 

 large young, but we were glad to find 

 at last actual nesting birds, though 

 they had long supposed to have bred 

 in this State. By July 1st we were 

 elated to find numerous handsome 

 second sets, and it is one of these 

 second sets in particular I shall refer 

 to. Cold and rainy weather, and often 

 snow, is prevalent at this altitude dur- 

 ing their first setting, April 10th to 

 25th, consequently the birds make 

 their nests under the overhanging 

 rocks and road banks, giving the great- 

 est amount of shelter from dripping 

 water above. By the middle of June, 

 the woods are carpeted with a luxuri- 

 ous growth of woodland ferns, grass 

 and greens of every description. The 

 farmers of the adjoining lowlands take 

 advantage of this pasture for their 

 cattle and drive up into the higher 

 mountains nearly all their stock for 

 the summer months. These countless 

 bands cover every foot of ground, 

 trampling down all the low vegetation 

 they do not eat, and caving off or land- 

 sliding the road banks. It is evident 

 therefore that most of the ground 

 building birds, especially the Juncos : 

 have a large percentage of their nests 

 destroyed, unless they take to the 

 very rocky ground or dense under- 

 growth bordering the streams. This 

 we found to be the case with the 

 Juncos; they had evidently learned 

 the lesson from experience. While 

 we were working up a bottom, adja- 

 cent to one of the largest streams, I 

 almost fell over a Carolina Junco, 

 calmly sitting on her nest in a thick 

 clump of Rhodendrum, five feet above 

 ground. She proved no exception as 



a close setter, and allowed me to al- 

 most touch her before flushing. It 

 was such an unusual location for a 

 Junco that I called my father from the 

 other side of the stream to see it, as 

 well as to verify my identification. 

 The date was June 14th, the nest a 

 typical Junco structure of dry grasses, 

 weed stems, and some moss, lined 

 with hair. The four eggs were incu- 

 bated about three days. Altitude 4000 

 feet. This was the only nest found at 

 such a height or location above ground, 

 though one other nest with four young 

 was discovered in a dense clump of 

 blackberry bushes, height 2y 2 feet up. 

 Harold H. Bailey, 



Newport News, Va. 



A Great Tree Climber. 



There lives in Waynesburg, Penn- 

 sylvania, an admirable man. His name 

 is Scott — Hugh Scott. Mr. Scott is 

 now nearly sixty years of age and 

 has, since his boyhood days, been an 

 ardent hunter of racoon, "coon-hunter" 

 is what he is popularly termed. It 

 has been his delight for many years 

 to follow the dogs in a hunt for his 

 favorite game. Hugh's experience in 

 coon hunting developed his climbing 

 ability wonderfully, many a night has 

 he mounted to the higher branches of 

 some mighty oak and pushed a racoon 

 to the ground for the dogs. Today I 

 hail Hugh Scott as the greatest tree 

 climber in these parts. 



During the past Spring Mr. R. C. 

 Harlow and I found some nests of the 

 Red-tailed Hawk which were up in 

 giant oaks and inaccessable to us, — ■ 

 one was exactly one hundred feet 

 above the ground in a huge white oak, 

 as straight as an arrow and fifty feet 

 to the first limb. We were too eager 

 to examine the set of eggs from that 

 nest, so I called on friend Hugh for 

 assistance. He stood at the base of 

 the giant oak, strapped on his climb- 



