THE OOLOGIST 



Rocks for hours at a time and fail to 

 see a single one of the huge birds that 

 once sailed over the bay by hundreds. 

 As the disappearance of the pelicans 

 and the construction of the wireless 

 occurred at about the same time, it is 

 supposed that the powerful electric 

 vibrations were the cause of the peli- 

 can emigration. — The Classmate.— W. 

 A. Strong, San Jose, Cal, 



MORE OFFICIALLY 



SEEN ''WILD PIGEONS" 



Medina, Pa., Jan. 12. — ^While pass- 

 ing through Springfield township. 

 Deputy Sheriff William M. Mathues, 

 master hunter of this county, declares 

 he saw a flock of 30 or more wild 

 pigeons feeding in a meadow. 



Mathues declares that he had not 

 seen a wild pigeon in this county 

 since 1876, and it has been generally 

 believed that they were extinct in this 

 section. 



MY SET OF NINE BARRED OWL'S 

 EGGS. 



I feel like I should offer a few re- 

 marks on the set of nine eggs of the 

 Barred Owl which I wrote about hav- 

 ing in my possession last March. (See 

 Vol. XXXIII, Pg. 42-3). 



Well, to begin, I had quite an un- 

 pleasant job getting them cleaned, as 

 they were nearly all dried up, only 

 three containing any liquid matter. 

 The others were dried hard and stuck 

 to the shell, or rather the lining. I 

 filled each egg with water and placed 

 them in a gallon earthen jar and put 

 in enough water to keep them entirely 

 submerged, which, by the way, was 

 some job. They would get air some 

 way and come to the top, and I had 

 to put in more water every few days 

 to keep them down. Occasionally I 

 would remove part of the water and 

 give the eggs a thorough shaking, then 



remove whatever would come out and 

 again refill them with water and set 

 them back to soak some more. I kept 

 up this method until I succeeded in 

 getting them all cleaned, which was 

 nine months. But now that I was for- 

 tunate enough to be able to save them, 

 I do not mind the work and bad smell, 

 which, by the way, was the worst. By 

 having to soak them so long, nearly 

 all of the dirty stains on the outside 

 came off and left them looking fine. 



Since getting them cleaned and 

 thoroughly dried, they do look like 

 Barred Owl eggs all right, but I am 

 convinced they are not. In the first 

 place the shell is considerably thicker, 

 and a great deal harder, as I men- 

 tioned before, and the shell is perfect- 

 ly smooth. All the Barred Owl eggs 

 I have ever handled had from one to 

 a dozen warts or bumpy places on the 

 shell; some are very small while 

 others are larger than the owls. They 

 are 2.11x1.76, but by picking out extra 

 large eggs and placing these with 

 them, it is a very hard matter to no- 

 tice any difference. Whether by their 

 being in water so long has changed 

 the color, I, of course, cannot say. 



Mr. Walter Raine, of Toronto, 

 Canada, advises me he thinks more 

 than likely they are Hooded Mergan- 

 ser. He says they are extremely hard 

 to drill, are about the same size, and 

 look like Barred Owl eggs. Mr. T. H. 

 Jackson, of West Chester, Pennsyl- 

 vania, also suggests they are Hooded 

 Mergansers. I questioned the men 

 who found them about the nest. They 

 claimed the eggs were settled down 

 in the rotten wood so that only about 

 one-third was visible, and some were 

 completely covered up. They say 

 there were no feathers or grass no- 

 ticeable, but the tree was a water oak 

 snag about twenty-five feet high, and 

 was about forty yards from White 

 Lake in the Kaskaska River bottom 



