Notes from Field and Study 



87 



family would go on feeding as before. 

 The young birds could fly for short dis- 

 tances but were very awkward upon the 

 wing, much preferring to sit and ruminate. 

 They were undoubtedly only a short time 

 out of the nest. For three days the family 

 were about the cottage, or until they had 

 cleaned the elderberry of fruit, and then 

 disappeared. Later I think I discovered 

 the nest in which the young were hatched, 

 in a low shrub close down by the edge of a 

 purling trout stream just below the cottage. 

 The nest was loosely built of dead grass 

 and small twigs, and contained the remains 

 of greenish-blue eggs, lightly flecked with 



we hastened to photograph them, also to 

 release them immediately thereafter with 

 profuse apologies. 



On the eleventh of November the trap 

 was moved from its barnyard home to the 

 vicinity of our feeding box, in an effort to 

 reduce the number of English Sparrows 

 who daily feasted there. 



Two English Sparrows were left in the 

 trap as decoys. A casual glance a little 

 later revealed, not a trap full of English 

 Sparrows, but a Loggerhead Shrike, the 

 first one we have seen in this vicinity, 

 frantically endeavoring to make a meal of 

 our imprisoned Sparrows. He was not 



WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS AWAITING THEIR RELEASE 

 Photographed by W. B. Perley, Jr. 



brownish spots. Of course I could not be 

 sure of the identity of the nest, though 

 there was not a shadow of doubt about the 

 birds. — O. W. Smith, Evansville, Wis. 



shy about it either, as he stayed for half 

 an hour before finally deciding that those 

 Sparrows were making him ridiculous. — 

 W. B. Perley, Jr., Ojibway, Ontario. 



The Adventures of a Sparrow Trap 



Imagine our feelings when we found 

 thirty English Sparrows in a patented 

 Sparrow trap that we had scoffed at for 

 six months. One might think that our 

 trap, having vindicated itself, would rest 

 on its laurels, but no ! Several weeks later 

 we found three White-crowned Sparrows 

 in its capacious interior. 



As this member of the Sparrow family 

 is rarely seen under such circumstances, 



Sparrow Meets Sparrow 



The first part of July, 1920 (unfor- 

 tunately, I did not record the exact date), 

 I discovered a pair of Chipping Sparrows 

 building a nest in a Baltimore Oriole's nest, 

 which has hung for several seasons about 

 fifteen feet up in an old apple-tree in our 

 yard. In this nest within a nest there were 

 to be strange happenings. 



I was away from home much of the 

 time and so paid little attention to the 



