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ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 9-No. 8 



Of the Bed-shouldered Hawk I «$h able 

 to chronicle fourteen sets taken this sea- 

 son, eight sets of four eggs, the remaining 

 sets three each. Of the Bed-tail I found 

 four sets, all of two eggs only. I find the 

 Buteos to breed in open woods, that is, 

 large trees some distance apart, with but 

 little or no undergrowth. All the sets were 

 taken between April 22 and May 1, with 

 nearly every egg slightly advanced in in- 

 cubation. 



Two Sparrow Hawks' nests were found 

 May 13, each a set of four. One of the 

 nests was in an old Flicker's hole in an ap- 

 ple tree just a few rods back of a farmer's 

 barn. Cooper's Hawk are very common. 

 Especially worthy of mention were a set 

 of six eggs May 9, and a set of four 

 sprinkled with reddish brown spots the size 

 of a pin head. 



Two nests of Marsh Hawk found May 

 12, contained five eggs each. One nest was 

 placed in a thick clump of wild rose bushes 

 and briars, some two feet from the ground 

 or rather water, as it was in an overflowed 

 cranberry bog. 



May 27, in a clump of Maples in a 

 swamp of dense undergrowth found the 

 nest of the Sharp Shinned Hawk. It con- 

 tained four eggs advanced in incubation, 

 which proves that these little Accipitres do 

 not always wait until June ere they begin 

 housekeeping. 



The Fish Hawk colony on Palmer Biver 

 number about forty nests. After visiting 

 nearly half of them I got a set of four 

 from the same nest which yielded a like 

 number in 'S2. 



I have ascended to their nests in July 

 and found three nearly fledged young sit- 

 ting on an extended platform of sticks, and 

 also three eggs in the nest proper. 



That the Osprey repairs or adds to his 

 nest in autumn is a fact, one pair building 

 a nest in the month of September on a 

 crotch higher up on the same tree with the 

 old uest, to avoid the persecution of boys. 

 They occupied this nest the next spring, 



but unfortunately they had trusted their 

 hopes to a slender foundation, and a sum- 

 mer gale hurled it to the ground with two 

 young. They repaired the old nest before 

 leaving in the fall, and this spring's return 

 brought the same pair to their old home. — 

 F. II. O. 



Notes from Jewett City, Conn. 



White-bellied Nuthatch. On Monday, 

 May 19th, one of my young friends, a 

 farmer's boy, who is somewhat interested 

 in oology, asked me if I knew what kind 

 of a "Woodpecker" laid speckled eggs'? 

 I told him that I had never known a 

 Woodpecker to so far depart from the es- 

 tablished customs of its family as to lay 

 other than pure white eggs. 



He said he had found a nest in a hole in 

 an apple tree containing nine eggs. They 

 were white with reddish spots, and accord- 

 ing to his notion, incubation was pretty 

 well advanced, for he admitted that he had 

 broken three while trying to blow them, 

 and declared that they could not be blown. 

 From his description of the birds and eggs 

 I felt certain that he had found a nest of 

 the White-bellied Nuthatch, (Sitta caroli- 

 nensis,) so I went with him and he gener- 

 ously gave me three of the eggs. There 

 were no doubts in my mind, after seeing 

 the eggs, as to what species laid them. I 

 experienced very little trouble in blowing 

 them, although they were somewhat incu- 

 bated. This was the first nest of the 

 White-bellied Nuthatch that I had ever 

 heard of in this part of the state, and I 

 learned with regret that both of the parent 

 birds were shot " for the purpose of iden- 

 tification." Within two weeks after learn- 

 ing of this nest I was informed of two 

 others that had been found. Each con- 

 tained nine eggs. 



Cliff Swallow, (Petrochelidon luni- 

 frons.) May 26th I visited a "colony" of 

 Cliff Swallows, accompanied by my friend 

 George H. Jennings, M. D., who is an en- 

 thusiastic ornithological student. 



