THE YOUNG OOLOGIST. 



117 



Vermillion; except on the inner vanes and 

 tips of the wing, which is dusky brown. 

 The head is perfectly smoth, having no 

 crest ; the female is olive-green and not 

 yellow ; one striking peculiarity about the 

 female is, that she will sing by the hour 

 while setting, and some of her notes are 

 very sweet and soft. They commence to 

 build about the last of April, generally 

 choosing the horizontal branch of a live 

 oak or sweet gum tree, but I have often 

 found them in small pine saplings not 

 more than four feet from the ground. 

 They will also build in a bunch of moss. 

 The nest is composed outwardly of a few 

 plants, leaves, and bits of moss, lined with 

 fine grass, (I have never found one built 

 with twigs,) and very often so thin, that 

 you can see the eggs from the ground. 

 They lay four eggs, bluish-green, Size .80 

 of an inch long by .68 broad, spotted with 

 brownish purple and dark brown. I have 

 found them as early as May 6th, incubation 

 commenced and never later than June 

 12th, so do not think they raise more than 

 one brood during the reason. 



T. D. Perry, 



Savannah, Ga. 



Carolina Wren. 



I found in the latter part of June nests 

 of the bird called by the encyclopedia 

 "Carolina House Wren." I was staying 

 at my home in Northern Alabama at the 

 time. I found two nests the same day, 

 one had five young ones in it, the other had 

 four fresh eggs. The one that had young- 

 birds in it was in a small Arborvita tree, 

 right against the main trunk. It was made 

 of long grass, and looked like a ball of 

 grass with a small hole about the size of a 

 half dollar in the side, the other was in 

 an old barn on one of the rafters ; the bird 

 is larger than the little house wren, of a 

 dark brown color, and a white breast; the 

 eggs were about the size of a wood pewee, 

 with dark reddish brown specks all over it, 

 but not thick like the other wrens eggs. 

 Avill you please put in the next Yoma 

 OoLOfiTST what sort of bird you call it. 

 James R. Stevens, Jr., 



Alexandria, Va. 



Carolina Wren. — [Ed. 



Our Birds in their Haunts. 



Our perusal of this book has been ac- 

 companied with a perpetual charm from 

 beginning to end. Our pleasant acquaint- 

 ance with the author, who is a fellow- 

 townsman, no doubt gave additional in- 

 terest to the subject, but over and above 

 all that there seems to be an originality of 

 treatment and keenness of observation 

 manifest in every chapter that captivates 

 the lover of nature, and lets him into the 

 secrets of bird-life to an extent hitherto 

 unparalleled in the works on Ornithology. 

 The volume before us is a work requiring 

 many years of painstaking study and travel 

 to seek out the haunts and learn the habits 

 of our feathered songsters. Some of the 

 sweet strains that make the air vocal at 

 certain seasons of the year have been 

 translated for us and we have the ' ' Hero, 

 hero, hero: Cheery, cheery, cheery: Cheer-wp, 

 clieeT-uf, cheer-up," of the Baltimore Oriole, 

 and the ' ' / 're cheated ye, I 've cheated ye, " 

 of the Goldfinch, written out, and in some 

 instances the iMtch, slides, and holds, suf- 

 ficiently indicated to tempt us to rob them 

 of their musical monopoly. We notice 

 that the author has left out the songs of the 

 Bobolink, that best of all songs. As we 

 learned it when a mere boy from the Bobo- 

 links that sung about our beautiful mead- 

 ow, we give it in full. Co-plee-co-tah-co-she- 

 speelacks - speela -peetacks - neighborly -cheer ; 

 protonky-ionky - tinker - pro - glory ; co-plur- 

 chtmk-o' -leather . The reading of this de- 

 lightful work has revived the memory of 

 many a day we have spent in hearing and 

 watching the birds. We have a great 

 liking for the author's method of dwelling 

 upon the curious and fascinating which is 

 furnished in great abundance in the careful 

 study of these charming creatures. 



The eeal object of the author seems to 

 have been to furnish a readable handbook 

 for everybody on the birds of Eastern 

 North America. This will have the effect 

 of popularizing the subject, and furnishing 

 new resources of knowledge to the special- 

 ist, by reporting directly from observation, 

 and that upon territories more or less new. 



It will be observed that the author has 



