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ISSUED IN BEHALF OF THE SCIENCE WHICH IT ADVOCATES. 



Volume III, 



MARCH, 1877. 



Number 1. 



Expressly for The Oologist. 



The Humming Bird. 



At yon bright flower, an object small 

 With glist'ning throat and quiv'ring wing, 



Is culling from its petalled wall 

 The essence which to it doth cling. 



Scarce greater than, I ween, a bee, 

 Its beak so delicate and slender ; 



This busy little jewel so free 

 Is a tiny model of wondrous splendor. 



How bright the little shining eye, 

 That darts its scintillations o'er 



The world of nature's progeny, 

 Seeking out the saccharine core 



Of some brilliant blossom. 

 No dainty handiwoi-k of man. 



With all its skilled artifice ; 

 No fancy urged by lofty plan, 



Can reach such perfection as this. 



'Wise as an Owl' or 'Stupid as an 

 Owl,' Which? 



^ROM a hollow in a chestnut on the 

 9th of April, '77 I took a set of Bar- 

 red Owl's eggs for the seventh consec- 

 utive time. And these Owls have thus 

 bred continuously under stern discourage- 

 ment. The only break was in '75, when 

 but one egg was obtained late in the sea- 

 son from a nest outside : broken shells un- 

 der the old tree, though, showed that a 

 previous set had fallen from the hole, which 



is a lateral fissure shelving insecurely at the 

 bottom. Five years ago the female was 

 shot, but the male at once brought a new 

 partner to this ancestral home. Last spring 

 I shot the male for my cabinet. This sea- 

 son the female bred as usual : but with many 

 chances for observation I have seen no male, 

 and at first fancied the eggs Avere infertile, 

 but blowing showed slight embryotic change. 



This case finds a parallel just outside this 

 county, where the cashier of the Portland 

 bank has relieved a pair of Great Horned 

 Owls of their eggs five years in succession. 

 This spring, mistaking it for a Hawk, he 

 brought down the female with a shot thro' 

 the head. The Owl is alive however, at 

 last accounts was doing well, and when 

 quite recovered is to be released in its old 

 haunts. No small amount of money would 

 tempt this collector to again shoot this 

 ' Goose' so long as she continues to lay him 

 golden eggs. 



I wish to add a word in regard to the ra- 

 pacity of the Great Horned Owl. On the 

 morning of the 28th of April, near the bor- 

 der of the Preston Cedar Swamp I climbed 

 to the nest of J^ubo virginlanus. On a 

 strong platform of sticks, besides an owlet 

 two weeks old, were the bodies of a gray 

 squirrel and two full grown American hares. 

 This spoil was warm and the result of the 

 previous night's foraging. The Rev. Mr. 

 Hutchins of "Westchester in April last took 



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