THE NIDOLOGIST 23 
description of the nest, from which I gather 
the following. 
The nesting of the Turkey Vulture is 
rare in his locality and he has found but 
three nests. ‘Two of these, including the 
high one, were in a large wood, two miies 
southwest of Waterloo. The person who 
showed him the breeding place said that 
Vulture had nested in this same sycamore 
tree for a number of years, at least ten, he 
thought. The tree stands in about the cen- 
ter of the woods, and is one of the iargest 
there, measuring seventy-two feet in heigit, 
and nearly fifteen feet in circumference. 
The top had broken off and the center of 
the tree had rotted out, leaving a hollow 
shell twelve feet high, and about thirty 
inches in diameter. The eggs were laid at 
the bottom of this hole on a bed composed 
of bits of wood, feathers and bones. 
There seemed to be plenty of good nesting 
places near the ground, and as the birds 
had probably not been disturbed, there is 
no evident reason why they should have 
gone so high. In 1892 Mr. Feagler found 
the Vultures, ‘‘undoubtedly the same pair,’’ 
nesting in another large sycamore a short 
distance from tke old site. The tree was 
not so large nor so high as the first, but as 
it was too late in the season for eggs, he 
did not climb it. HENRY R. Buck. 
Wetherfield, Conn. 
+e 
Correspondence. 
AN OLD LETTER. 
The following interesting letter was written by 
Raine to the editorin New York, over a year ago. 
Kew BEACH, TORONTO, SEPT. 7, 1895. 
Mr. Taytor, Szv:--I expect Macoun will be home 
in two weeks, when I shall go to Ottawa and inter- 
view him about the Western Grebe’s eggs. I shall 
expect him to explain why he wrote me saying all his 
eggs were collected in sets. When Macoun explains 
himself I shall give you a chance to vindicate me in 
THE Nipotocist and if you still refuse I shall proceed 
with my case for libel when the Canadian courts open 
up in October. In your scramble for evidence against 
frauds you forgot to ask me to explain my side of the 
case. You evidently read with pleasure Macoun’s 
letter in which he states he did not collect the eggs in 
sets, criminating me. Yours, etc., 
r, W. RAINE. 
P. S.—If I come to New York I shall ask you to 
apologize to me; if youdo I shall shake hands and 
forgive you, but if you don’t make amends for the 
wrong you have done me you must take the conse- 
quences, for [ am a devil when my blood is up. I am 
made of the stuff that has figured in duels more than 
once, and many a duel has been fought between 
editors and parties they have slandered. 
RAINE’S CRANE CASE. 
Mr H.R. Tayior, Dear Sir:—Will you pub- 
lish the following letter from Prof. Macoun so 
that the readers of THE NIDOLOGIST may see 
there is not a particle of truth in Mr. Shufeldt’s 
charge, ‘‘That I mixed a lot of eggs together 
to look pretty and sell well and then made 
them into ‘sets’? and sold them for either 
Grebes’ eggs or for Cormorants’ as the de- 
mand required.” While in Ottawa two weeks 
ago Prof. Macoun showed me the copy ot another 
letter he wrote last May to Dr. Murchison. This 
I copied from the Professors letter book as 
follows: 
May 4, 1896. 
Dr. Murcuison, My Dear Sir:—Your letter came 
this morning and in answer I may say that I have 
never known anything against Mr. Raine’s character 
in any sense whatever and many of our rare eggs have 
been obtained from him. Mr. Higgins wrote me in 
January, 1895, and I answered his letter on the 2oth of 
the same month and my answer is now before me. He 
asked about Cormorants’ and Western Grebe’s eggs 
and I took his letter as being one of simple inquiry 
only. 
The following is what I said about the Grebe’s eggs: 
““The Western Grebe’s eggs were just gathered from 
the nests that showed fresh eggs so that they do not 
represent separate sets but just selections from a number 
of nests.”” 
Now if Mr. Higgins had asked for an explanation of 
the above I would have said, ‘‘ There were hundreds of 
eggs in the bull-rushes having from three to five eggs in 
each, and I just waded around and collected nearly 
one hundred of the freshest eggs, carried them to my 
hut and numbered them in sets ” 
On my return I exchanged many of these eggs with 
Mr. Raine and each set has my figuresin ink. As far 
as I am aware Mr. Raine sold a number of these sets 
with my set number on them, and if there is any fraud 
in the matter I was the guilty party and not Mr. Raine. 
I intended no fraud and I am quite sure none was 
intended by Mr. Raine. Yours truly, 
JoHN Macoun. 
Prof. Macoun says he considers there is no 
harm in making up sets when the eggs are 
immaculate, but when the eggs are marked and 
spotted he considers the eggs should be collected 
in original sets; of course others will differ from 
him in this matter, but as it was Prof. Macoun’s 
first season egg collecting he is to be excused. 
I might also add, Mr. Macoun did not tell me 
at the time I received the eggs of Western Grebe 
that they were made into sets by himself. As all 
the sets of Cormorants, Gulls, Ducks and other 
eggs I got from him were marked in sets, how 
was I to know that the Western Grebe’s eggs were 
made up sets from second nests. I am forward- 
ing short etchings of the data of some of the sets 
of Grebe, Cormorant, which I hope you will 
publish. 
I suppose both Mr. Taylor and Mr. Shufeldt 
will now apologize for the great harm they have 
done me, but this will be poor compensation for 
the loss I have sustained, for since Mr. Taylor 
charged me with making up sets of Grebe from 
singles in the May number of THE NIDOLOGIST, 
1895, my sales of birds’ eggs and skins have 
decreased about one-half. While there was some 
excuse for Mr. Taylor jumping to the conclusion 
