Notes and Comments. 
Davip STARR JORDAN, President of Stanford Uni- 
versity, was elected President of the California Acad- 
emy of Sciences January 6. Dr. H. H. Harkness had 
been the incumbent of the office for many years. 
At Spiers’ nursery, in the western suburbs of Vi- 
salia, Cal., a Valley Quail has taken up with a flock of 
guinea hens, and has been making itself at home 
with them ever since last spring. The Quail roams 
over the orchard with the guinea hens all day, and at 
night roosts in a tree with them. 
WHEN does the nesting season close and when be- 
gin? Bald Eagles nest in December in Florida, and 
we have just received the information that a nest and 
two fresh eggs of Anna’s Hummingbird were taken 
by A. I. McCormick at Los Angeles, Cal., on Decem- 
ber 21, 1895. This is the earliest (or latest ?) record of 
this bird’s breeding. 
WE read in a late number of /ve/d Sports San Fran- 
cisco, that the fishermen on the bay catch many 
Ducks in their fishing nets. It is claimed that in shal- 
low water, where the Ducks go to the bottom to feed, 
they are caught and entangled in the drift nets of the 
fishermen, only to be taken out when the net has been 
landed. These drowned Ducks are quite plentiful in 
the markets. 
THE NIDOLOGIST 6£ 
A Thrush’s Nest. 
(WRITTEN FOR THE NIDOLOGIST.) 
Far from this clay-built cup the soul is gone— 
Here broken twig and ragged fiber lie; 
But with dear fancy’s wing my thought flits on 
Through arch of woodland green and sunny sky, 
There—thongh in rigid boughs chill winter grieves, 
And barren every shrine of joy may be, 
Still broods a golden bird among the leaves— 
Sull floats a hymn of lover's ecsté 
EMMA CARLETON. 
New Albany, Ind. 
A. W. ANTHONY writes: ‘I congratulate you on 
the improved cover for the NIDOLOGIST, also on the 
other improvements. I was pleased to meet the A. O. 
U. members, also the editor of the Colorado Depart- 
ment. I'd know him by that smile anywhere. But 
what is the matter with that port ear? He looks as if 
he were listening to a Burrowing Owl down a deep 
hole.” 
——_ > 0 
Dangerous Game to Stalk. 
N OT a pleasant fellow to meet on a lonely 
road of a dark night. ‘This rhinoceros 
was seen by a native hunter employed 
by Fekete (Dr. Emil Holub’s companion on an 
African journey), fast 
TWO-HORNED BLACK 
RHINOCEROS. 
| asleep under a tree: 
| Noiselessly approaching, 
he climbed into another 
tree, and put several bul- 
lets into him before he 
could rise. When cut 
up, the great ungulate 
required eight strong 
men to bring him into 
camp. 
In South Africa, in 
1866 (at which place and 
time the editor of this 
magazine first saw the 
light, and soon thereafter 
held the important off- 
cial position in Cape 
Town of town cvzer), the 
soggy, swampy woodlands 
were punctured with the 
tracks, nearly a foot deep, 
of the rhinoceros. M.S. 
‘Taylor, then a youth of 
nineteen, started out one 
fine day with a shotgun 
and bird shot to slay one 
of these big two-horned 
terrors. The intrepid 
youth found following 
rhinoceros tracks hard 
work, and fortunately did 
not come up with one, 
