Sept. 1884.] 



AND OOLOGIST. 



115 



the whole loosely constructed and quite shallow. It con- 

 tained three eggs, nearly globular in shape, and light green 

 in color, with blotches of a darker shade. The female 

 seemed to be brooding, being slow to quit the nest. 



June '22. Another nest of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo met 

 my eye. This was placed near to the top of a Spruce tree 

 twenty feet high. 



Examined the nest of the Kingbird. This was placed at 

 the fork of an out-reaching limb of a Locust tree in a pas- 

 ture Held, about twenty feet from the ground. It was a 

 very neat and compact structure, composed of rootlets 

 and grasses, and lined with black and white horse hairs. 

 It contained four young birds. Although there is no bird 

 more courageous, and more determined and impetuous in 

 defending its nest and young against the assaults and in- 

 trusions of other birds, yet on the approach of any other 

 living object it becomes one of the most cowardly and 

 skulking of birds, always keeping at a good distance, and 

 scarcely daring to utter a chirp. 



Observed the Tufted Titmouse carrying food to its young 

 in the hole of a dead tree, about ten feet from the ground, 

 in a small retired wood. 



A nest I was interested in finding was that of the Yellow- 

 breasted Chat. It was securely fixed to two or three upright 

 blackberry stalks in the midst of a blackberry and elder 

 thicket, near to a wood. The first or outside materials 

 were dried weed stalks and stems, then a layer of dead 

 leaves, then another of grapevine strips, with a lining of 

 dried grasses. It contained four very pretty eggs with 

 reddish brown specks on a white ground, thicker and heav- 

 ier on the greater end. This bird is rather abundant 

 throughout this district, and its strange, varied notes may 

 be heard issuing from almost every thicket. 



June 23. A nest I came across in a piece of woods was 

 that of the Red-eyed Vireo, which was suspended from a 

 forked twig near the end of a drooping limb of a Hickory 

 tree, about eight feet from the ground. An examination 

 revealed two ne%vly hatched living birds, one dead one, and 

 one egg. One of the two living birds was a Cowbird, much 

 larger than the Vireo, and seemed to be a trifle older. It 

 was undoubtedly the occasion of the death of one young 

 Vireo in the nest, and was just about ready to crowd the 

 other out of it. The single egg remaining was also the 

 Cowbird's. 



Under date June 12, I noted the finding of an Indigo 

 bird's nest. I did not state, however, that I killed in the 

 same locality, a few moments later, the female owner, as 

 it proved to be, mistaking her in the dusk of the evening 

 for a strange species of Sparrow. She had laid two eggs, 

 one of which I had removed, leaving one. Passing in the 

 vicinity of this nest to-day I made an examination and 

 found in it three Cowbird's eggs, the single Indigo bird's 

 egg having disappeared. I have never known the Cowbird 

 to be so numerous in any one locality as they have been 

 here this season, and it has been the exception to find a 

 nest of the smaller birds that did not contain one or more 

 of the former's eggs, 



June 30. Within the past few days a pair of Cardinal 

 Redbirds built a nest in a grapevine in my back yard, laid 

 but two eggs and the female is now brooding. This is un- 

 usual familiarity for this bird to come and nest, as in this 

 instance, within the precincts of a thickly populated village. 



Brief Notes. 



Nest of the Mockingbird in Connecticut. Since 

 writing ab6nt the Mockingbird's nest, I have learned that 

 there are several other nests in the same locality, and that 

 the birds were seen by many. A farmer's boy showed me 

 two eggs that he collected, and he reported having seen 



young birds. He showed me one of the nests, which was 

 exactly like the one taken by Dr. Jennings and myself. 

 Perhaps they will all come back to this region next season. 

 — C. E. Prior. 



A Queer. Nesting Place. A few days ago, while look- 

 ing over the new Slater Library building now in process of 

 construction in this place, the foreman called my attention 

 to a Bluebird's nest that had been placed between a win- 

 dow-frame and the casing. It was just out of reach, and 

 was very near the main entrance where the workmen were 

 going in and out, carrying brick, stone and mortar from 

 morning till night. The female bird rarely left the nest, 

 and then only for a short time. The nest had no covering 

 and the bird could be plainly seen from the street. She we s 

 as confiding a specimen as I ever saw, and her confidence 

 was not misplaced, for the workmen were very proud of 

 their feathered protegee, and championed her cause from the 

 first. At the date of this writing she has hatched her young 

 and is busily engaged feeding them. 



Aug. 20. I want to say that the Bluebirds of which I wrote 

 yon recently, were birds of rare firmness and pluck. As the 

 Library building progressed, it became necessary to move 

 the nest containing the unfledged birds, so the foreman 

 found a small box and placed the nest and young in it, 

 leaving it in a conspicuous place. The old birds seemed to 

 understand the proceedings and governed themselves ac- 

 cordingly, finishing their labor of love and sending out into 

 the world a family of birds that will no doubt reflect credit 

 upon their parents.— Clias. Edw. Prior, Jewett City. 



Wood Ibis, {Tantalus loculator). There were shot about 

 ten days ago and sent here to be mounted, three tine speci- 

 mens of the Wood Ibis. They were shot in the neighbor- 

 hood of Elizabethtown, Lancaster Co., this state, between 

 eighty and eighty-five miles from here. The occurrence is 

 so rare that I thought it would be worthy of note. — H. J. 

 Sherratt, Philadelphia, Pa., July 20. 



Nest of Chewink. In reply to query by Job Barnard, Au- 

 gust O. and O. In May, 1879, 1 saw a nest of this bird hid in 

 a hazel thicket about three feet from the ground, with four 

 fresh eggs. The only nest I ever left for more eggs was at 

 once forsaken by the parents. It is a favorite Cowbird's 

 nest here, three sets being composed of one Chewink's and 

 three Cowbird's, two and three Cowbird's and three and 

 two Cowbird's. These marauders are probably as abund- 

 ant here in the breeding season, as anywhere on the conti- 

 nent, and there are nests in which it is the exception to 

 find none of their eggs.— If. E. Saunders, London, Can. 



I have known of two Chewink's nests being built above 

 the ground. One in August at Coldbrook Springs, Mass., 

 in a pine six feet from the ground; the other found by my 

 friend, Mr. E. W. Nelson, on Fox Prairie, 111., was in a 

 tangle of bushes about three feet above the ground.— Fred. 

 T. Jencks, Providence, R I. 



Entomology. I would like to ask my fellow entomolo- 

 gists throughout the country, if they notice an unusual 

 scarcity of summer Lepidoptera this year as compared with 

 others, and if so, what is the cause? There are but very 

 few in this section of those that were plentiful last sum- 

 mer. The spring flies, such as Colyomatus cscudargiolus, P. 

 Lucia, P. Comyntas, Vanessa, dc., were abundant, hut the 

 later ones as Asterias, Troilus, Idalia, Aphrodite, Cybele, 

 Atalanta,d-c.,a,K quite rare. The same remark applies to 

 moths, with the exception of Sesia pelasgus and Micro- 

 Lepidoptera. On the 17th of June, near South Braintree, 

 Mass., I took a number of fine specimens of Militae 

 chaeton (always a rare fly from the fact of its being 

 extremely local.) Co'.eoptera seem to have shared the same 

 fate as Lepidoptera. Some of my friends attribute the 

 scarcity to the cold winter and wet spring, but I maintain 

 that the fatality was last fall. I base my opinion on the 



