3i6 AMEEICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



decent place or rather house to stay in over night. We started out the 

 day we arrived to the heronry and found it simply full of Black Crown- 

 ed Night Herons and nests. 



We found a nest that was sixty feet from the ground and my brother 

 climbed up and photographed the eggs which were in the nest. It 

 took him a long time as the nest was in such a bad place. At last we 

 rigged up a fake camera and left it by the nest, hoping to get a picture 

 of the mother bird sitting on her eggs, which no one has been able to 

 accomplish. We went home that night leaving the fake by the nest. 



Next morning we got some crackers and chocolate for our lunch and 

 started out for the heronry again. My brother climbed up again and 

 put the real camera in the place of the fake one. He tied a long black 

 thread to the shutter and let it down to me. He then came down him- 

 self He hid me where the birds could not see me from the nest. He 

 said that he would go a long way off and give a low whistle when the 

 bird was on the nest, so that I would pull the string. 



Now there happened to be another nest right next to this one. We 

 focused on one of the nests, but neither bird came. My brother said, 

 "let's focus on the other." So up he went for the third time and fo- 

 cused on nest number two. Then, of course, the bird came on nest 

 number one. For the fourth time he went up and focused on that nest, 

 but neither bird came. 



It was now growing dark and we could not see to take any more 

 photographs, so we went home that night and tried to be satisfied with 

 the luck we had had in taking the eggs which came out very well. 



Clarence C. Abbott (age 10), 



New York, N. Y. 



There is a small pond not far from my house and as I was walking 

 around it the other day I came suddenly upon a Black Duck swimming 

 in a small inlet. I stood perfectly still and the duck after looking at 

 me a minute, slowly sank from sight, keeping the same position that 

 he was swimming in. (head erect). 



I watched closely to see where he would come up. After a while I 

 saw a faint ripple about eighty yards away and a small black head 

 came up about an inch out of the water and in a second was gone. 

 Pretty soon it came up again about eighty yards from where it first 

 appeared. It then sank as before. He did this three times in all and 

 then came up for good. If I hadn't seen the duck's head as it rose, I 

 should probably have thought the ripples were made by a fish rising to 

 the surface. Stafford A. Francis, 



Exeter, N. H. 



