io8 



THE YOUNG OOLOGIST. 



The Nest and Eggs of a Fish Hawk. 



May 9th, 1883, I collected a handsome set 

 of three eggs of this bird. The nest was 

 placed in a rotten oak, at its very top, and 

 before it could be reached we were com- 

 pelled to nail huge bars as braces to the 

 side of the tree. On arriving at the top the 

 nest appeared prodigious. It was fully 

 twice as large as a bushel basket, and Avas 

 made of the most curious mixture of old 

 seaweed, dung, clods of earth and sticks 

 or limbs as large as one's fist. I chose dusk 

 as a suitable time to obtain the eggs on ac- 

 count of the extreme height, being from 

 sixty to seventy feet from the ground. 



I was rewarded by a most beautiful set 

 of eggs. They lay before me now, and I . 

 hardly feel as if 1 could do justice to them 

 by a description. They are all about the 

 same size; number one Is a rich blood red 

 at the larger end and entirely buff at the 

 smaller, by far the best of the three; num- 

 ber two has the same top, but the color 

 runs all over the egg; number three is a 

 curious mixture of the other two, being 

 dark chocolate on a creamy buff ground, 

 marked with confluent splashes of biown. 

 They all have the fishy smell which lingers 

 so long after they leave the nest. I have 

 seen and collected a great many eggs of 

 this bird, but this set I would not part with 

 for any amount of other eggs. 



H. A. Talbot, 

 Brooklyn, N.Y. 



The Way We Get the Eggs of the 

 Bank Swallow. 



About 7 o'clock a. m. my partner and I 

 get ready for our hunt. 



The first thing we get is the seat, as we 

 call it; it is a board about three feet long 

 and one foot wide, with a liole in eaeh 

 end in which we tie the ends of the rope. 

 Next thing is the scupper, a piece of iron 

 6 by 2 inches. 



And last the egg box and spile, which we 

 drive in the bank to hold and adjust the 

 seat in the right place. 



We then hitch \ip the horse and are 

 ready for the journey. It is about three 



miles to the place on the lake where we 

 go. When we arrive and hitch the horse 

 to a tree we walk down to the bank. 



Here you will see a bank about thirty 

 feet high and very steep, in which there 

 •is numerous little holes out of which the 

 swallows are darting. 



We now drive the spile in the bank and 

 fasten the rope to it, and descend with the 

 scupper to the board on which we sit. 

 Now you will see us digging into the holes 

 in the bank, and next running our hand in 

 and pulling out six small white eggs. 



1 usually take a hold of the edge of the 

 nest and pull the whole thing out at once, 

 in this way you are not liable to break the 



eggs- 

 Then my partner lowers the egg box, 

 which is nothing more than a big cigar 

 box full of cotton, and I place the eggs in 

 it. In this way we get the Swallow eggs. 

 "Chad," 



Cleveland, O. 



Flickers in a Church Tower. 



Last fall (1883) a beautiful church was 

 built at this place, with a tower that rose 

 gracefully into the air to the heighth of 

 sixty-five feet. In the spring of 1884, 

 Yellow-shafted Flickers, on their road 

 passing from one woods to another, 

 chanced to alight on the tower, and began 

 to cut holes in large enough to admit them- 

 selves, finding it a suitable place for 

 breeding, began at once to construct nests, 

 placing them on timbers within. Six pair 

 succeeded in bringing forth their young. 

 G. F. B., 



Beattie, Kansas. 



Unspotted Eggs of the Chipping 

 Sparrow. 



In reply to C. H. A., I would say that 

 while collecting in Middletown in June last 

 I found in a hedge of thorn trees a nest 

 containing four eggs of the same size and 

 color of the Chipping Sparrow, and identi- 

 fied them by the bird and the nest. 



J. W. Swan, Jr., 

 Newport, K.I. 



