120 



Bird - Lore 



nest. For ten minutes I looked over the ground foot by foot. I could not 

 believe mj^ own eyes that the bird was not there, yet I could not see her. 

 At last I was about to return to the mark and step the ground over again, 

 when a reflection from the bird's eye showed her to me just one foot from 

 where I was standing. 



The camera was set up and several exposures were made. One of the 

 resulting photographs was reproduced as a frontispiece to Bird -Lore, 

 (Vol. Ill, December, 1901.) The eggs, six in number, were also pho- 

 tographed. 



This nest, like the one found in 1890, was elliptical in shape, but the 

 bird would go on her nest only from the east and always sat with her head 

 to the west. The bird would return within a few feet of her nest and then 

 dart suddenly at the head or the hand of one handling her eggs. There were 

 no willows near the nest, and the eggs, six in number, were partly incu- 

 bated when discovered June 21. 



In 1902 I was in California during the nesting season of the Ptarmi- 

 gan, but last year a nest was found on July 5 by Mrs. Douthwaite, of 

 La Fayette, Colo., on James' Peak, near Loch Lomond, containing seven 

 eggs. This bird was frightened from her nest by dogs and threw a num- 

 ber of her eggs out and down over the rocks, where they were broken and 

 were found to be incubated almost to hatching. 



This nest was also elliptical in shape and the bird always sat facing the 

 east. A number of dead willow twigs and grass had evidently been carried 

 together by the bird herself to make this nest. Unlike the other two I 

 have seen with bird on nest, this bird was not so well concealed by her 



surroundings and, as shown in 

 the accompanying photographs, 

 was plainly visible. 



Altogether I have seen three 

 nests containing bird and eggs 

 and four complete sets of eggs, 

 besides over twenty old nests con- 

 taining only the last year's egg- 

 shells and a few feathers ; and 

 while I must confess but little 

 knowledge of their nesting habits, 

 this much I claim — that they 

 never nest in the willows but in 

 the open, depending on their 

 color for protection ; that they remain sitting till nearly or actually touched 

 by the human foot or hand ; that they place their nest differently in differ- 

 ent seasons owing to the amount of snow, and that different individuals 

 varv in the season of nesting, as I have seen young birds full-grown and on 



A PTARMIGAN CHICK 



