148 



tHi dOLOGlSt 



me. I estimated the flock at 500, and 

 among them I saw Crows, Mourning 

 Doves, Night Hawks (Chordeles vir- 

 ginianus) Whip-poor-wills and one 

 Great Blue Heron, also a few Kill- 

 deer. They were flying as if their 

 lives depended on leaving the storm 

 behind. Up until this date there had 

 been 25 or 30 Killdeer feeding in a 

 cattle pasture about a quarter of a 

 mile from my home, the pasture was 

 prairie land, and there were two ponds 

 in the plot. The Killdeers nested 

 in this plot, and I found quite a few 

 nests and later on saw the young. I 

 visited this pasture on August 21, 22, 

 23 and 24. But I was unable to find a 

 single bird until today, the 25th. I 

 found the Killdeers as plentiful as 

 ever. I suppose they, too, had been 

 driven south by the storm. 



The strangest thing of all was that 

 a Great Blue Heron that has been 

 using the ponds in the pasture has 

 remained in them the past few days, 

 just like he has for the past two 

 weeks. 



I have often seen a few birds flee- 

 ing ahead of a storm, but I have 

 never seen so many at one time as in 

 this instance. Why did they leave? 

 And where did they go? Search me! 

 I don't know. 



J. Earl Harlow, 



. Texico, 111. 

 Aug. 25, 1923. Jefferson Co. 



FREAK CARDINAL EGGS 



My father and I went down to the 

 nearest creek for a day's fishing on 

 July 13, 1923. It rained most of the 

 morning, and the fish bit well. After 

 a long hard day we came in tired and 

 happy, with nine good fish between 

 us — which is a good day's bag for 

 that stream with a fiy rod. As a side 

 line I might say that I had five of 

 them while the veteran had only four. 



However busy fishing we may be, I 

 am never past stopping for a side ex- 

 cursion after some bird. 



Late in the afternoon I came to a 

 place where the stream had cut 

 through a willow bar, and as I waded 

 along the edge of the willows in hip 

 deep water trolling my fiy along the 

 edge of the willows ahead of me, a 

 Cardinal flew out of the willows just 

 at my head. After some trouble in 

 getting my footing solid enough to 

 look above me, I found the nest about 

 three feet above and over the water. 

 While both adults watched me, I ex- 

 an:'ned the eggs, and finding them odd 

 I took them with me, carrying them 

 in my hat for four miles. And, by 

 the way, one was cracked when I 

 found the nest, but I managed to save 

 it, although it is a very unstable ad- 

 dition to a collection. 



The eggs are all three different. In 

 the first place, all the Cardinal sets I 

 have seen this season were a pale 

 bluish-white with regular speckling. 

 The ground color of these eggs is a 

 cream color, of rather pronounced hue. 

 One is heavily spotted with reddish, 

 brown to the exclusion of the basic 

 color. The second egg is very light, 

 with a fair marking of reddish brown 

 about the large end only. The third 

 egg has only three spots of reddish 

 brown on its whole surface, two being 

 small, and the third spot is almost 

 one-half inch in diameter and irregu- 

 lar in shape. Oddly to say, three days 

 later six feet of water came down the 

 creek — no more nests for a while. 



Johnson A. Neff, 

 Marionville, Mo. 



