168 



THE OOLOGIST. 



and from tliat day to tliis that plum 

 tree has been his home. Bat he has 

 Ijocome so tame that he will take meat 

 out of my wife's hand, she usually feeds 

 him, and hangs :^)und her like a eat or 

 dog will around their master. I never 

 saw one treacherous aetion about him, 

 is gentle to everything, unless it be 

 (hjgs or eats that sometimes try to steal 

 his meat, then take eare. Neither one 

 has any business with him, and when 

 they attempt to defraud him, the gen- 

 erally depart with more haste than dig- 

 nity. 



One more item showing the sagacity 

 of birds as well as animals, and I will 

 close this too lengthy article. Abe is a 

 very clean bird and likes the bath tub 

 evtiry day, will splash and play in a 

 tub of water equal to any duck or goose. 

 One day he was given a dishpan of 

 on the porch close to the door. There' 

 wcjre strangers in the holTse wdio want- 

 ed to see him bathe, but of whom he 

 was a little shy. He eyed the pan of 

 water for a while, then carefully ap- 

 proached and grabbed the handle one 

 side of the pan with one of those mighty 

 claws, and literally dragged that pan of 

 Avater aw^ay to what he thought a safer 

 distance, then took liis regular bath 

 plumed and dried himself, and then re- 

 turned to his plum tree where he now 

 sits monarcli of all h(#surveys. I haA'e 

 always been a great lover (;f pets and 

 have had many, but not one to v.iiom 

 wqfe, children and all were so attached 

 they Avould all rather go without meat 

 than to see Abe go hungry. 



R. D. Goss, 

 New Sharon, Iowa. 



A Day's Collecting' Trip. 



1 agree witli your correspondent, J. 

 C W., in th(> Dec(Mu])('r OoL>')(;isT, that 

 no collecting affords more real, solid 

 enjoyment than searching for the nests 

 of water birds. I will endeavor to tell 

 the readers of the OoloCtIST of a pleas- 



ant trip which I made on the 80th (;f 

 May. I left home and ai'rived at a 

 slough back of tiie gun club grounds, 

 about 9 a. m. This slough was sur- 

 rounded l)y a meadow. 1 had not ])r(;- 

 ceeded over one hundred feet when a 

 l)ird Hushed abiiost under my feet. A 

 glance told mi' that it wms a Blue-wing- 

 ed Teal. I looked down and there was 

 the nest. It was nothing but a "hole in 

 the ground," lined Avith doAvn, and I'on- 

 tained twelve eggs. Rather a large set 

 as Davie says 6 to 10. My next lind 

 was an luicompleted set of tAvo Long- 

 billed Marsh Wren's eggs. The nest 

 Avas made by bending down the sur- 

 rounding grasses and Aveaving other 

 grasses thraugh them, making a globu- 

 lar structure Avith the entrance on the 

 side. Within ten feet of this nest I 

 found a set of 11 Sora Rails eggs. Last 

 year this bird Avas A'ery c(unmon and I 

 could haA-e taken 500 of their eggs, but 

 the aljove set is the only one I found 

 this year. I next found a lot of com- 

 mon eggs Avhich I did not take, such as 

 Red-Avinged Blackbirds, Yellow-headed 

 Blackbii-ds, YelloAv Warblers, etc. I 

 then started for another lake and on 

 the Avay a farm boy showed me a set of 

 three Least Bittern's eggs. The incu- 

 bation Avas (me-fourth advanced. He 

 also gave me a set of six Virginia Rail's 

 eggs for a sling shot. I now sat doAvn 

 and ate my lunch, when I saAV a bird 

 tly to a birch tree near the Avater. 1 

 went and iuA^estigated the matter and 

 *the result was 4 badly inculcated eggs 

 of YelloAV-bellied Woodpecker. I uoav 

 started for a lake Avhei-e I had heard 

 that Black Terns bred. Upon reaching 

 it a cloud of them^came over my head 

 uttering their shrill cries. I waded in 

 and foimd (Ia'C sets of three and one set 

 of two. The nest Avas nothing Init a 

 pile of grasses Avith a slight depression 

 on Avhich the eggs Avere deposited. In 

 all cases the nests Avere floating. While 

 collecting these I found three sets of 

 Pied-billed Grebes — two sets of seven 



