AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 183 



WHAT BIRDS ARE DESCRIBED IN THESE VERSES? 



1. "Black robber of the cornfields, Oh, beware! 

 The farmer can do other things than scare." 



2. "Red-breasted harbinger of Spring, 

 We wait in hope to hear thee sing." 



3. "Bird of the night, thy round eyes are aglow 

 With all the learning, which the sages know." 



4. "King of the water as the air, 

 He dives and finds his prey." 



5. "You imitate the foe which does you wrong, 

 And call 'meaw' instead of chanting song." 



6. "A flash of sky on wing." 



7. "You introduce yourself throughout your song, 

 And tell the world your brief, old-fashioned name." 



8. "Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black, 

 In some forgotten garden, ages back, 

 Yearning toward heaven until its wish was heard. 

 Desire unspeakably to be a bird?" 



MAILBAG EXTRACTS. 

 ALBINO GRACKLES. 



I thought some bird lovers might be interested in a freak blackbird, 

 or Grackle, that we have in our city. It is the same size and shape 

 of other Grackles, but has a white throat, the color extending up to the 

 eyes. The head is spotted as though some of the feathers were tipped 

 with white. The rest of the head has the iridescent feathers same as= 

 in the other birds. This bird was around here last summer and came 

 back with the first big flock that I saw this spring. 



Perhaps some readers may be interested, enough in the way I feed 

 the winter birds to follow suit next winter. Every morning I cracked 

 two large dishes of walnuts and put them on our front porch and very 

 cold days more. The first thing I would hear in the morning was the 

 birds singing and chatting in the trees, waiting for their breakfasts. 

 The herds that ate the nuts were the Chickadees, Nuthatches, Hairy 

 and Downy Woodpeckers, Juncos, Bluejays and English Sparrows. I 

 have seen Robins and Grackles go to the dishes but not many times. 



Mildred Ivey, Lancaster, Wis. 



ANSWERS TO MAY PUZZLES. 



Enigma No. 1. American Goldfinch. 

 Enigma No. 2. American Merganser. 



