Notes from Field and Study 



67 



drive out the Sparrows, who by this time 

 generally have young in the nest. No one 

 can blame them for defending their eggs or 

 young against birds they have never seen 

 before. Nothing is too small for Wrens 

 to build in, and nothing too large; what- 

 ever they build in, they will fill up all waste 

 space with sticks. Tie up a paper bag, put 

 a hole in the side and a Wren will use it 

 for a nest. This shows how hard up they 

 are for nesting sites ; so why can we not help 

 them out, — every one do a little? 



In the vicinity of New York Bluebirds 

 begin to build the first week in April and 

 House Wrens the first week of May. 



The boxes should be put up in March, 

 but I have had a box used which I put up 

 as late as June i. — Josiah Clark. 



An Unusual Nest of the Cliff Swallow 



Many year* ago a colony of Cliff Swal- 

 lows annually domiciled under the eaves of 

 a neighboring barn. Upon the introduc- 

 tion of the European House Sparrows, I 

 noticed that they occupied the old nests be- 

 fore the migrants arrived in spring, and 

 annoyed the Swallows so that they left in 

 despair. In 1901 and 1902 a colony of 

 Cliff Swallows built under the eaves of Mr. 

 Paul Fuller's barn, in Wykoff, N. J., and 

 in 1902 they built in a barn at Saddle 

 River. In the latter place there was nothing 

 in the shape of a projection under the eaves, 

 to serve as a foundation for a nest. So the 

 birds had some failures in building. One 

 pair, with apparently more intelligence than 

 the rest, took advantage of a ledge which 

 did duty as weather strip over the top 

 edge of a wicket door, as here shown in a 

 photograph by Mr. Winfred Smith. After 

 the nest was deserted it was taken down and 

 presented to the American Museum of 

 Natural History. The distance from the 

 top of the ledge to under eaves is about 

 eighteen inches. This distance was reached 

 by building a cylinder tube of clay worked 

 up with short straw, and filled with straw 

 up to a height where it would just have 

 room enough to build the nest on top; all 

 of which was perfectly done, and the 

 birds had the happy satisfaction of rearing 



their young on this ingenious construction. 

 Now it is evident that the pair of birds 

 surveyed the situation and built this re- 

 markable structure without any attempt 

 at a nest until they reached the desirable dis- 

 tance to construct their nest, so they could 

 reach the ceiling of the eave to fasten the 

 nest to. It seems to me to be a case of 

 adaptability for which an unreasoning in- 

 stinct does not satisfactorily account. — 

 Henry Hales, Ridi^eiuooJ, N. J. 



AN UNUSUAL NEST OF THE CLIKK SWALLOW 



A Winter Mockingbird 



This morning (Feb. 16, 1904) the ther- 

 mometer registers two degrees below zero, 

 and a Mockingbird has eaten several times 

 at his box against the house where I can 

 reach it from a window and keep the food in 

 order. He has been to this box every day 

 since December 5, many days procuring 

 from it all the food he has had — the snow 

 covering everything else. Many nights the 

 temperature has been several degrees below 

 zero and he has weathered it, to our amaze- 



