134 



THE OOLOGIST 



EGG HUNTING IN JULY, 1922 



We drove northwest of here about 

 twenty miles. Plenty of bird life was 

 observed along the road. We collected 

 two sets of Night Hawks in a gravel 

 bed beside the road, and a little 

 further on we found some Killdeer eggs 

 not a' full set, so we left them. Ar- 

 riving at the river we made camp and 

 went in search of Owls. First hollow 

 pounded out came a Barred Owl and 

 we collected a nice set here and on 

 up the river we took a branch and fol- 

 lowed it to some old Hawks' nests. At 

 one nest we could see feathers and on 

 close examination we could see a bird 

 on the nest. I went up the tree and 

 collected a set of three, not Hawk 

 eggs, but Great Horned Owl's. 



From this branch we hit it for the 

 hills and went to looking the ledges 

 over for Vultures. We flushed Vulture 

 after Vulture. First a set of two, 

 some young, and on down until we had 

 a dozen sets and one set of three. 

 About that time the baby woke up 

 which was sleeping near by and I 

 also woke up to find that it was all a 

 dream. Shucks, I sure was having 

 some time but it had to be a dream. 

 Well, some dreams come true but I 

 don't expect this one ever will. After 

 a hard day's work in my taxidermy 

 ■shop I went to bed that night with 

 egg collecting on my mind and the 

 above episode is what I dreamed 

 about. 



tlainon Graham, 

 Ft. Worth, Tex. 



DESTRUCTION OF LAPLAND LONG- 

 SPURS 



Amid the absurd stories about birds 

 that trickle through the columns of 

 the unscientific press there now and 

 then occurs one that makes bird-men 

 take notice. Of such character was a 

 sensational item in the Kansas Star 

 for February 20, 1922. 



This "story" told of the death, in a 

 sleet storm, of thousands of small 

 birds, at Gordon, (northwestern) Ne- 

 braska. Straightway I wrote to the 

 postmaster of Gordon, asking the name 

 of some one in his town interested in 

 birds; and laying a train of publicity- 

 securing data which would, I dared to 

 hope, secure me specimens of the un- 

 identified birds. Duly I received 

 from a' citizen of Gordon, the state- 

 ment that parties from my own town 

 had written with the same intent and, 

 possibly 1 might secure the desired 

 data from them. 



A day or two later there called upon 

 me a' fine bachelor Irishman, and his 

 maiden housekeeper sister. They re- 

 ported themselves as living two miles 

 from my town, and a's being vastly in- 

 terested in birds. As to information 

 about the Gordon catastrophe, they 

 just laughed. Their informant had 

 told them he thought the birds were 

 some species of Warbler! The three 

 of us put our heads together and re- 

 newed our heroic efforts to secure at 

 least a few feathers from the hapless 

 Gordon birds. Vain hope, nothing 

 happened! And now comes Miss 

 Bessie Reed, in The Auk for July, pro- 

 nouncing the Gordon birds to have 

 been, exactly as I had supposed, Long- 

 spurs. Miss Reed, being a woman, 

 had shown herself more "cute" than I. 

 She wrote to the mayor! And so. Miss 

 Reed fell in with a real man, while I 

 ran into a bag of nuts! 



P. B. Peabody. 



