THE OOLOGIST. 



61 



be much farther iu. In his eageruess, the 

 youth reaches three iiiclies farther than he 

 ever did before or, ever couki again, losing 

 his foot-hold on the bank, and placing him- 

 self in an unsupported and possibly critical 

 position. He reaches the nest and hauls 

 out the whole atfair. There is nothing in 

 it : evidently it is not yet finished, and when 

 driven out, the Kingfisher was very likely 

 engaged in arranging her materials. What 

 he supposed to be eggs was simply the ends 

 of a few white feathers. A sadness and 

 sullen despair pervades the subsequent 

 movements of that collector, for the re- 

 mainder of the day, unless the discovery of 

 another nest of some kind redeems the lost 

 laboi". 



The i'oregoing reflects fully the experi- 

 ence of the writer, who, he feels obliged to 

 say, has been singularly unfortunate in ex- 

 cavating Kingfishers' nests, for out of more 

 tiian two dozen taken at different times dur- 

 ing the nesting season, all but thiee or four 

 contained either young birds or nothing. 



Avis. 



barn, close to the holes left there for their 

 ingress and egress. The same nests, he 

 says, are used every year. 



Habit of the Ciiiimney Swallow. — It 

 would not be an exaggeration to say that 

 one fourth of all the Chinmey Swallows 

 breeding in the central counties of New 

 York, build their nests in out-buildings. 

 Nearly every barn within a radius of sev- 

 eral miles in Herkimer county, contains 

 from one to six or eight nests, and as the 

 young return with the old birds every spring 

 quite a colony is formed in a short time. 

 In some portions of the country, these birds 

 are known to nest only in chimneys. Most 

 farmers in this section know the bird, from 

 its habit of nesting in barns, as the Barn 

 Swallow, and the true species of that name 

 also goes by the same appellation. We 

 were told by a gentleman, who takes an in- 

 terest in observing the birds on his farm, 

 that occasionally the Chimney Swallows 

 would fix their nests upon the rafters, in 

 the apex of the roof, precisely in the man- 

 ner of the Barn Swallow, but that they us- 

 ually fastened them up in the end of the 



Which was It? — A collector informs 

 us that last spring he found a Woodpecker's 

 nest in the top of a tall decayed tree. As- 

 cending to ascertain whether it contained 

 eggs, he found two holes, one of which was 

 on the further side of the tree, directly op- 

 posite the first hole. On tearing away a 

 portion of the decayed wood, both apertures 

 were seen to connect and lead into one nest, 

 in which he found four eggs. On descend- 

 ing, a Golden-winged Woodpecker flew in- 

 to the tree, and presently entered the near- 

 est hole ; the eggs were evidently hers. A 

 week or so after, happening to pass tlie ti-ee, 

 our informant bethought himself of the 

 nest, and was about to climb the tree, when 

 from the further hole flew a Red-headed 

 Woodpeckei". This was puzzling, but he 

 ascended to the nest, found two eggs, and 

 descending, awaited the actions of the bird. 

 He had not waited long when two Red- 

 headed Woodpeckers came, and one enter- 

 ed the nest. She soon came out and the 

 other went in, he too coming out hastily. 

 They both remained in the tree a short 

 time, then as if by common consent, both 

 flew off; nor did they come back while our 

 informant was there. A month ')r so there- 

 after, young Fliekei's were perceived about 

 the nest. Our informant does not know to 

 a certainty which species deposited the eggs 

 he took on both occasions, but he believes 

 them all, from their similarity, to have be- 

 lontred to the Flicker. 



Between now and the first of March, 

 1878, if our friends will aid us in augment- 

 ing our subscription list, we shall publish 

 several interesting illustrations of rare 

 birds' eggs, of even a better class of repre- 

 sentation than heretofore. We need the 

 co-operation of all ornithologists in making 

 our journal useful and interesting. 



