112 
THE NIDOLOGIST 
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DR. ROBT. COLLETT. (1892) 
lished memoirs. Dr. Collett has written 
much both upon the fishes and the birds of 
Norway, and has also published in the 
Norwegian language, an extensive brochure 
(with 3 folding plates) upon the classifica- 
tion and the anatomy of the Owls. This 
work I have recently had translated into 
English, with the view of publishing it, 
and thereby extending its usefulness. Still 
more recently he has done some very good 
work with his camera among the sea-fowl 
on the rocky coasts of Norway and the off- 
lying islands that enjoy a similar character. 
One of these, wherein he succeded in taking 
a number of Cormorants and their nests 
(Phalocrocorax carbo) on the Lofoten Islands 
has recently been accepted by The Auk for 
publication, and another that he has like- 
wise sent me is here offered in connection 
with the present article. (See Figure.) It 
represents a number of Puffins (/vatercula 
arctica) on a rock near Stavanger, a point 
the Doctor visited during the summer of 
1895. I copied this photograph with my 
own camera, slightly enlarging the original, 
and it is my enlarged copy that appears 
here. . 
Upon examining the photograph with a 
powerful lens so as to greatly increase the 
size of the birds, I could easily imagine that 
I stood upon the very rock where they 
were, and as they were resting in many 
characteristic attitudes, it was almost as 
good as seeing the birds themselves, some- 
thing that I have as yet not enjoyed in 
nature. Some day I may have this picture 
very much enlarged, so as to have the Puf- 
fins at least a fourth the size of life; they 
will then be useful as models from which 
mouuted birds may be preserved by the 
taxidermic artist,and it is a species we very 
much need such an example of, as a guide 
to go by, for the mounted specimens of 
Fratercula in all the museum’s cases that I 
have examined are usually anything but 
correct. ; 
Doctor Collett writes me that he intends 
to still further explore the coasts of Norway 
during the coming summer (1896), and 
doubtless to no little benefit to ornithologi- 
cal science. 
—-—> — 
Song Flight of the Prairy Horned Lark. 
N MY WAY to the thicket and just 
as I was climbing over the north 
gate I heard a Prairie Horned Lark, 
and I soon saw him singing as he was fly- 
ing upward until almost out of sight— 
though I saw him plainly with the glass. 
And then he flew up and down, up witha 
very glad strong song and down witha 
jerky twitter, only a few feet at a time. 
After he had kept this up for fully five 
minutes he just seemed to shut his wings 
and fall head first from where he was, al- 
most out of sight, tothe ground, only about 
ten rods from the place he went up trom, 
just opened his wings twenty-five or thirty 
feet above the ground to catch himself. 
This song flight I have read of several 
times but never saw a good sample of it be- 
fore. I just lay on my back on top of the 
gate and took it all in. 
While at the highest point in the air when 
coming down a few feet at a time with 
a jerky song, he apparently just tumbled 
end over end, suddenly catching himself and 
flying back up, singing loudly and much 
finer than he ever does on the ground. [Ex- 
tract from letter from Virginius H. Chase, 
Wady Petra, Ill., Feb. 26, 1896.] 
BRB ris Se ie 
Mr. N. M. Moran, of the Cooper Ornithological 
Club, took this year two sets of the White-throated 
Swift. These are the first complete sets ever 
taken. He also secured two sets of the Black 
Oyster-catcher. 
