AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



37 



and in her haste to reach the nest flew against the thorn, which pene- 

 trated the loose skin of her throat, and when she dropped her full 

 weight upon it, she coald not free herself. There was no evidence of 

 a struggle about the bird or her nest, and so it seems likely that the 

 bird's sufferings were brief. Perhaps the thorn pierced the windpipe 

 sufficiently to cause speedy death by strangling. 



Photo by W. Leon Dawson. 

 ROBIN TRAGEDY. 



This is the first bird I have ever seen caught in this way on a thorn. 

 Many birds, such as the thrashers, robins, cardinals and shrikes, often 

 build their nests in the most wicked looking thorn-bushes and hedges, 

 into which they frequently plunge with seeming recklessness, and I 

 have often wondered how they avoid impaling themselves; but it is a 

 real comfort to know that fatalities of the kind described are of rare 

 occurrence. The only one bearing a close resemblance to the robin 

 tragedy that has come under my eye was that of a song sparrow which 



