Notes From Field and Study 



175 



Four or five times during an hour and a 

 half the birds on the telegraph wires rose 

 in a body, with those drinking at the 

 brook, while the flock from the pasture 

 hurriedly crossed the intervening fields to 

 join them. For a moment the very air 

 seemed full of Swallows, then rising higher, 

 they separated into smaller flocks, turning 

 back and forth, meeting again, describing 

 curious figures as smoothly and easily as if 

 going through a long-practiced drill. After 

 a few minutes, they either returned, a few at 

 a time, to their former perches, or gradually 

 scattered over the fields and woods and in 

 a little while came streaming back, a long 

 river of Swallows, to alight once more. 



As the morning advanced their numbers 

 gradually diminished, and at 3 p. m. about 

 thirty remained. For three or four days 

 after that these Swallows were present in 

 great numbers, continuing their drill, after 

 which I noticed no more than usual. — 

 Isabella McC. Lemmon, Engle^voood, N . J. 



An Aerial Battle 



On September 24, 1898, I witnessed a 

 most vigorous and spirited fight between 

 a Sparrow Hawk and a female Sharp - 

 shinned Hawk. Each seemed equally the 

 aggressor and fought after its own peculiar 

 method of hunting, the Sparrow Hawk al- 

 ways endeavoring to rise high above the 

 other and then dash down falcon-like on 

 the back of its antagonist, a manoeuver 

 which the other usually forestalled by turn- 

 ing on its back and striking upwards 

 viciously, though once or twice I fancied 

 that the Sparrow Hawk struck her pretty 

 severely before she was able to turn. 



The Sharp-shinned Hawk attacked with 

 a horizontal flight, sometimes with a side 

 movement, but oftener straight ahead, and, 

 to my surprise, appeared to have the ad- 

 vantage when flying against the wind, in 

 spite of its opponent's more compact build 

 and stiflFer wing feathers. The two fought 

 back and forth over the same ground for 

 ten minutes or more, each endeavoring to 

 gain the advantage by keeping to the 

 ■( windward, but continually beaten back by 

 i the gale. The Sparrow Hawk fought in 



silence, while the other uttered sharp, petu- 

 lant shrieks from time to time. — W. E. 

 Cram, Hampton Falls, N. H. 



Note on the Warbling Vireo 



An early morning visit to Rock Island, 

 in the Mississippi river at Moline, Illinois, 

 for the purpose of becoming more familiar 

 with the Warbling Vireo — the bird, its 

 song, its nest, its habits — revealed a very 

 pretty bit of bird-ways. 



Seated on the ground, in a convenient 

 place for watching the Vireo, which was 

 on the nest, we were soon attracted by a 

 Vireo's song. Search for the singer failed 

 to find it, until we noted that the bird on 

 the nest seemed to be singing. Then, as 

 we watched, over and over again the bird 

 was seen to lift up its head and pour out 

 the long, rich warble — a most delicious 

 sight and sound. 



Are such ways usual amongst birds, or 

 did we chance to see and hear an un- 

 usual thing ? — Amanda Elliott, Moline, 

 Illinois. 



The Bird Rock Group 



(See Frontispiece) 



One of the objects of the writer's trip to 

 Bird Rock in July, 1898, was to secure 

 material to be used in the representation 

 of the interesting phase of bird-life the 

 Rock so well typifies, in the American 

 Museum of Natural Histor}^ This object 

 has now been happily accomplished through 

 the skill and talents of Mr. H. C. Dens- 

 low, of the Museum's taxidermic staff, and 

 the Bird Rock group is considered to be 

 one of the most successful, as well as most 

 ambitious attempts, to reproduce the haunts 

 of birds.— F. M. C. 



The Eighteenth Congress of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union 



The public sessions of the A. O. U. will 

 be held November 12-14 in the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York 

 city. The Second Annual Audubon Con- 

 ference will also occur at the same place 

 during the same week. 



