J^Dtes^ from JFtelti anti ^tutip 



A Swimming Crow 



On the 17th of May of last year I visited 

 a locality about a dozen miles from Boston 

 which is a specially interesting one, both 

 botanically and ornithologically — one of 

 those swamps which form Canadian islands 

 in our Transition fauna and flora — but 

 the strangest thing I saw that day was not 

 connected with any of the rare birds or 

 plants which are foimd there. It was the 

 sight of a Crow going in swimming! It 

 was a sick Crow evidently, and I came upon 

 him just as I was emerging from the 

 wooded swamp out upon an open marsh. 

 He was flapping and floundering his way 

 along the ground toward a brook which 

 separates the meadow from the woods, and 

 as I approached he reached the dilapidated 

 bridge that crosses the stream, and tumbled, 

 whether accidentally or purposely, from one 

 of its loose timbers into the water. When 

 I got to the bridge I found him afloat in an 

 eddy of the brook about six feet away from 

 me, right side up, but with his head en- 

 tirely under water and apparently held there 

 deliberately! He kept his head submerged 

 for some time — a full minute, I should say 

 — and I was beginning to think I had met 

 with a case of bird suicide, when he took it 

 out and shook it and floated off into the 

 current. Here he looked like a Duck, sit- 

 ting up in the water as if entirely at home 

 in that element. As he drifted down 

 stream, he put his head under water again, 

 but this time only for a few seconds. As 

 there is a bend in the brook at this point, 

 the current carried him across to the other 

 side, and he floundered out and up the 

 bank through the bushes Into the woods. I 

 could see no injury to his wings — his feet 

 never came into full view — but it was evident 

 that he could neither fly nor walk, and, 

 from his apparent disregard of my pre- 

 sence, it seemed to be a case of sickness. 

 Perhaps he had a bad headache— or per- 

 haps he may have been suffering from the 

 attacks of some parasite. A friend has sug- 



gested that the hiding of the head may have 

 been prompted by the desire for conceal- 

 ment, as in the case of the Ostricfi and the 

 sand. But why should behave taken to the 

 water in the first place? I cannot help 

 thinking that his bath was an intentional 

 one. At all events, the soaking of the head 

 was deliberate and not due to helplessness 

 or clumsiness. Has any one else had a 

 similar experience? — Francis H. Allen, 

 JVest Roxbury, Mass. 



Nest - Building Habits of the 

 Chickadee 



Although the Chickadee sometimes breeds 

 in the abandoned nests of Woodpeckers, 

 and sometimes deepens and enlarges knot- 

 holes, it more frequently does all the work 

 of excavation itself. For this purpose it 

 usually chooses an old stump, or an upright 

 dead limb so dry and punky that the bark 

 is falling off. The wood must be soft, 

 otherwise the bird's bill is too weak to 

 work in it. 



The chips are not flirted out upon the 

 ground after the manner of the Downy 

 Woodpecker, but are invariably carried out 

 in the bill to a short distance from the hole 

 and then dropped. Both male and female 

 work together, and appear to share equally 

 in the labor. One enters the hole, remains 

 long enough to gather a billful of wood — 

 usually from ten to thirty seconds — then 

 emerges and flies to some contiguous branch, 

 where it drops the chips. Then it returns 

 to a perch near the hole, or sometimes to the 

 edge of the opening, where It waits for Its 

 mate, now inside, to emerge. When the 

 latter pops out, in it goes without a mo- 

 ment's delay. The mate, having similarly 

 disposed of its load of chips, returns In 

 readiness to enter when the other leaves. 

 With brief intermissions this rotation is 

 often kept up for hours at a time. The dis- 

 tance which the birds carry the chips varies, 

 but it is usually only to some convenient 

 twig from twenty-five to seventy-five feet 



(63; 



