33 



THE OOLOaiST 3^ (-^), H \^ 



about three and one-lialf miles north 

 of Hervey, Illinois, I have questioned 

 our local sportsmen who frequent that 

 territory, and I learn they do some 

 times see a straggling Duck during 

 the summer months, and one party 

 says he knows where there was a pair 

 of small ducks nested two years ago, 

 and has volunteered to pilot me to it 

 so I am intending to give him a 

 chance. 



After considering everything, I am 

 led to believe our friends, Raine and 

 Jackson, are about right in their opin- 

 ion, and had I waited until I got them 

 cleaned I do not think I should have 

 called them Barred Owl. While it is 

 a fact they will never be positively 

 identified, I think they would be more 

 readily accepted for Mergansers than 

 so large a set of owls. 



MOCKING BIRD AND 



GREEN SNAKE. 



While I was taking a set of four 

 Bell's Vireo eggs I heard two Mock- 

 ingbirds fighting in a small bush just 

 in front of me. 1 went over and a 

 large green snake was in the tree 

 with a young Mockingbird half swal- 

 lowed. 1 killed the snake and the 

 birds sang his funeral march. 



Ramon Graham. 



Large Sets of the Barn Owl. 



I am fully aware that in the West 

 the Barn Owl, which is there an abun- 

 dant species, often lays sets of eight 

 or even more eggs. In Pennsylvania, 

 however, out of a number of nests ex- 

 amined the sets will not average more 

 than five eggs, with four often a com- 

 plete set. 



On March 26, 1908, I found a nest 

 of this bird on the Tinicum meadows, 

 to the south of Philadelphia, consist- 

 ing of eight eggs, incubation rather 

 uneven. It was a trifle over twenty- 

 three feet from the ground in a large 



oak, standing alone in the middle of 

 the meadows, where they had bred for 

 generations. A friend of the older 

 school passed this tree on to me, tell- 

 ing me he had taken sets there as 

 early as 1888, twenty years ago, and 

 when 1 left Philadelphia, I passed it 

 on to a friend, and he tells me they 

 are still breeding there. I have taken 

 four sets from this tree, of eight, 

 seven, five and five eggs, respectively. 

 On several occasions, 1 have found 

 eggs spoiled by freezing, which had 

 been laid as early as February at least. 

 Several other pairs inhabited this re- 

 gion formerly, but they seem to be 

 getting scarcer here, though spread- 

 ing more commonly in surrounding 

 counties. Their decline in numbers in 

 this locality is not due to egg collec- 

 tors, as they succeed in turning out a 

 brood each season (all they would do 

 under normal conditions), but to the 

 cutting down of these nest trees and 

 the settling of the meadows by for- 

 eigners who kill everything in sight, 

 and whose gastronomic organs balk 

 at nothing — not even Barn Owl or 

 Turkey Buzzard. 



Richard C. Harlow. 

 State College, Pa. 

 » ♦ » 



A Bird Tragedy in Winter. 



A number of years ago when I was 

 at my home in the country, I saw a 

 Loggerhead Shrike pursue and kill a 

 Cardinal. 



It was a dark, blustering, snowy 

 day, such a day as makes one glad to 

 be within doors. From my window I 

 saw the Shrike pursuing the Cardinal 

 about the cedars in the yard. The 

 Redbird was plainly becoming winded, 

 and was all the time uttering a de- 

 sparing cry, I rushed from the house 

 to try and save it, but when I was out 

 of doors the Shirke had choked it to 

 death beneath the trees — its bright 

 plumage a stain in the soft new-fallen 

 snow. C. W. 



