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Bird - Lore 



Alleghany Mountains. The bird was first 

 seen in a garden on Sunday, November 7, 

 by the family living in the tenant house. 

 The men at once tried to shoot it, but it 

 escaped. 



The next morning Harry Caldwell, son 

 of the tenant, took his gun and started to 

 look for the huge bird. He found it in 

 the woods a quarter of a mile from the 

 house, and shot at it three times. For- 

 tunately, he only stunned the Eagle and, 

 with the assistance of two other men, suc- 

 ceeded in binding him and carrying him 

 home alive. 



On hearing of it, I took my 'Bird 

 Guide' and went at once to see the Eagle. 

 He corresponded exactly to the descrip- 

 tion given of the Golden Eagle in Chas. 

 K. Reed's 'Water and Game Birds East of 

 the Rockies.' He measures 35 inches in 

 length and 6 feet, 10 inches from tip to tip 

 of the wings. 



Harry Caldwell, who is a poor boy in 

 feeble health, exhibited the Golden 

 Eagle in Roanoke, Virginia, the past two 

 weeks, in order to secure funds for medical 

 treatment, and realized $300 from the 

 exhibit. The Eagle has thoroughly re- 

 covered from its wounds, one of which was 

 on the beak, another on a claw, and I 

 failed to locate the third. — Mss. B. F. 

 Shaver, Troutville, Va. 



House Sparrows Destroy Crocuses 



I never knew how far down the animal 

 scale ingratitude extended until the 

 depredations of a flock of House Sparrows 

 awakened me to the fact. All winter long 

 a sense of pity for these starving birds, 

 shuddering in the deep snows, caused us 

 to feed them, day by day, almost lavishly. 

 The snow disappeared at length, and like 

 magic, thousands of yellow crocuses starred 

 the lawns about our home, a joy to us and 

 to our friends. But one day the old half- 

 breed Indian, who is always pottering 

 about the grounds, came with a querulous 

 message: "Come out, and see what these 



d English Sparrows are doing! They 



are tearing the crocuses in pieces !" 



Sure enough, they had plucked the 



petals from many of the delicious flowers, 

 in pure wantonness. The grass was littered 

 with them. The abominable little hyphens 

 would swoop down on a clump of glowing 

 blossoms and tear them to pieces in a 

 sort of fury ! Frightened away, they would 

 return again and again, like 'sportsmen' 

 that revel in the insane joy of murder. 



It has been our infelicitous experience, 

 again and again, on rising, to find that 

 these pirates of the air had sailed down 

 with the dawn and plundered our golden 

 argosies. The last of the flowers were 

 rifled yesterday. Has any one else had 

 this unique form of depredation by the 

 House Sparrows? — Geo. T. Welch, 

 Passaic, N. Y. 



Evening Grosbeaks and Other Rarities 

 at Bethel, Vt. 



The field-notes concerning Evening 

 Grosbeaks have interested us as we have 

 been watching them here, this last winter. 

 On February 5 one female appeared in our 

 maple. On February 18 a female was with 

 Goldfinches in our sumac tree. March 12 

 brought us a male, eating seeds from a 

 locust tree. Several people reported one 

 or more of these birds about the town. 

 I saw no more until April 23, when a flock 

 of twenty appeared on another street. 

 These birds stayed about that locality. I 

 saw the flock again on May 9, and on May 

 14 I found one bird, a female. This is the 

 latest date I have for 1916. 



Last year, I noted, for the first time, the 

 nesting of the House Wren in our village. 

 A boy put up a box, made not at all accord- 

 ing to the rules, but the Wrens filled it full 

 of sticks, and apparently lived happily. 

 This year another boy, in the same neigh- 

 borhood, has a pair of House Wrens in a 

 box that is made with a proper opening, 

 though the box is unnecessarily large. 

 Another House Wren sings in a locust 

 grove on a different street. 



On May 16, a neighbor came in the rain 

 to tell me of great white birds over the 

 river. They proved to be a pair of Caspian 

 Terns, birds that we have never before 

 seen here, though we occasionally see 



