THE MDIOLOGLST. 



final word of advice to all collectors. Do 

 not simply amass specimens. Be sure to 

 add to youT stock of knowledge. In your 

 trips in wood and field, on lake or riv^er, 

 keep your eyes and ears open, and absorb 

 as much of natural love and woodcraft as 

 you are able. And, furthermore, do not 

 fail to carry a notebook at all times on your 

 trips and make entries, many of them 

 lengthy ones, in order to fortify your mem- 

 ory. It is a pleasure to take notes, and the 

 reference to those notes is ever a pleasing 

 reminder of happy days spent in the pursuit 

 of our study. 



One more word. Do not think that the 

 gathering of a collection of eggs, birds, or 

 any other class of specimens is the sole ob- 

 ject of a naturalist. Be liberal in your in- 

 vestigations of Nature and Science, and in 

 your rambles observe the flowers, trees, 

 insects, reptiles and other representatives 

 in the great field of Nature. The season for 

 the oologist is past for the year, but there 

 is as much to observe as ever in the realm 

 of Nature; and I warn you that if you 

 would continue a lover of the woods and 

 fields, you must not neglect interest in the 

 various departments. 



In other words, be a naturalist and not 

 an insipid "fad collector." 



Ka/amaaoo, Mich. 



A BUTCHER BIRD'S WORK. 



KILLED WITH SMALL SHOT. 



Not a Least Sandpiper, nor a Humming- 

 bird, nor a Bush Tit, but the largest bird 

 of flight in the world ! 



W. A. Burres killed for me, on a hillside 

 near Sargents in San Benito County, a full 

 grown specimen of the California Condor 

 with number nine shot. 



The big fellow measured something like 

 nine and a half feet from tip to tip of wings, 

 and weighed, as I am informed by the 

 collector, twenty five pounds. The speci- 

 men was mounted, and is now in the 

 museum of the California Academy of 

 Sciences. T. 



In June of this year I found a nest of 

 a House F'inch or Linnet in a grove of 

 willows, which bore evidence of the in- 

 trusion of a terrible enemy. 



The fresh eggs, which the nest had con- 

 tained, lay broken and dried, and just three 

 or four inches above them hung by the 

 head the body of the female Linnet. It was 

 firmly impaled on an upright dry twig, 

 which pas.sed through the base of the lower 

 mandible. The brain of the murdered 

 mother bird had been eaten, but the body 

 .seemed untouched. From all the signs the 

 author of tbe tragedy must have been a 

 Shrike. The butcher evidently caught the 

 bird on her nest, and then pitilessly- hung 

 her above it. T. 



PUGNACIOUS TURKEY BUZZARDS. 



An odd account of a pair of pugnacious 

 Turkey Buzzards was related to me by 

 Mr. W. A. Burres. " They were trying to 

 scare a squirrel," says Mr. Burres, "but 

 the squirrel was not so easily scared. They 

 were in a hole in a bank, right below a 

 hole where I took some Buzzard's eggs 

 two years ago. 



"I heard a noise there, and went down 

 to the old hole to see what it was. There 

 I saw the two Buzzards both in the hole 

 and trying to scare out the squirrel. They 

 did not hear me on account of the noise 

 they were all making. I got within three 

 feet of them and could have caught both 

 of them. I watched the antics of the 

 squirrel and the contest the Buzzards were 

 making for possession for some time when 

 the birds .saw me and flew out. 



"I found that in the old hole of the 

 Buzzards a Barn Owl was nesting, which 

 probably explains why the birds were look- 

 ing for other quarters." 



To rid nests of parasites or other life 

 place them in a tight case with some carbon 

 bi.sulphide. In three or four days the work 

 will be thoroughly accomplished. 



