those two gentlemen, widely-known ornithologists, who have just arranged for 

 the financing of these trips for a further period of four years. The quest of Yel- 

 low Rails' nests is endlessly fascinating, and I shall never be done, I guess, until 

 the grim reaper puts me into his collecting box. 



CIRCLETTEB EGGS— "Y" SET 



THE "SEASON" OF 1918 

 By W. L. D. 



Briefly, there wasn't any, in the proper sense of the word. Our readers 

 will recall that the world was very much occupied during the spring of 1918. Ar- 

 tificial birds, contraptions of aluminum, steel, spruce, linen, collodion, and what 

 not, plus blood and brains, had the right of way that year. The writer was en- 

 gaged in coaching (financially) one of these temperamental monsters, hight Hy- 

 droplane. The flying tub did eventually flutter off to San Diego, and she estab- 

 lished thereby a very creditable record, a Pacific record for non-stop flight of a 

 hydroplane. But Lai Uncle Sam wasn't interested in hydroplanes, (nor in the 

 Pacific Coast) just then, for she was pouring millions into the construction of 

 practice planes which (for Teutonic reasons) either never left the ground at all 

 or else crumpled up neatly in midair. We "did our bit," or tried to, but so far as 

 results were concerned, we might better have been out gathering linnets' eggs. 



The "Comparative Oologizer," who never before since his tenth year had 

 failed to score on the birds in nesting time, was all but skunked this season. All 

 that saved him was the privilege of bringing down a nest, n/5, of the California 

 Jay (Aphelocoma calif o mica), a nest located by another pair of eyes in the top of a 

 live oak tree in his own front yard. What did redeem the situation museum- wise 

 was the fact that these were uncommonly fine examples of the "red" type, a type 

 not previously observed in this immediate vicinity. Whereas the ordinary type 

 of Jays' eggs runs from pale sulphate green to lichen green, as to ground, with 

 markings of deep olive, or even Lincoln green, the red type has a ground varying 

 from grayish white (the choicest) to lichen green, and markings of warm sepia or 

 bister to Rood's brown. Please understand, then, that this set of home-brewed 

 Jays' eggs of the red type is quite worthy to sustain the dignity not only of a 

 tottering reputation, but of a scratch season. 



U 



