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The Dovekie Near Buffalo 



November 15, igoS, I found on the 

 Canadian shore of Lake Erie, about 

 seven miles from BufTalo, the body of a 

 Dovekie {Alle alle). The skin was identi- 

 fied by Mr. Savage and Dr. Cummings of 

 the ButTalo Academy of Science and is 

 still in my possession. The specimen was 

 a male, entirely free from subcutaneous 

 fat, and the crop was empty. 



November 14, 1908, there was a heavy 

 snow storm with high wind. November 

 S, 1908, there were many large flocks of 

 Snowflakes, which is earlier than the\' 

 usually appear in this neighborhood. — 

 Everett P. Wheeler, II, Buffalo, N. Y. 



"Retribution" 



In May, 1908, whilst searching for an 

 albino Bluebird, which, with her cerulean 

 mate, were reported to have frequently 

 been seen on the outskirts of the city, I 

 discovered two Bullock Oriole's nests in a 

 large cottonwood, each occupied by a pair 

 of English Sparrows. These sharp birds 

 had pre-empted the last year's pensile nests 

 of the Orioles, ballooning them to enor- 

 mous proportions, building a round door- 

 way in one side according to their custom; 

 and in these swinging homes high in the 

 air, raised their numerous broods during 

 the summer. 



I intended securing one of these nests 

 to photograph and place in my collection 

 of odd birds' nests, but was prevented by 

 a long, serious illness from doing so until 

 in October. On October 17, I visited the 

 tree and found one of the nests still occu- 

 pied by the Sparrows as a home, but the 

 other nest had disappeared, whether it had 

 been torn from its moorings by some wind 

 storm, or removed by curio hunters, I am 

 unable to say. In critically scrutinizing 

 the massive top of the tree with my glasses, 

 I discovered an Oriole's nest of the present 

 season, and, greatly to my astonishment, 



noted the presence of the female on a 

 branch just above the nest. The great host 

 of Bullock Orioles, which breed and spend 

 their summer in this region, had left on 



HOUSE SP.\RRO\V E\T.\NGLED IN 

 NEST OK BULLOCK'S ORIOLE 



their migration to the South a month be- 

 fore; and why should this lone mother bird 

 thus delay her going and linger about 

 the empty nest? Presently, I thought the 

 key to the mystery was mine, fo^ with the 

 aid of the glasses a bird with its neck entan- 

 gled in the loosely woven horse-hairs of 

 the upper rim of the nest, was made out 

 dangling in the air, but the thick yellow 

 leaves so obstructed the view it was impos- 

 sible to make out to what species it be- 

 longed. The fact of the presence of the 

 female naturally caused me to imagine that 

 her mate had come to his death in this 



(174) 



