THE OOLOQIST 



65 



AT REST. 



B. W. Griffiths, of 536 S. 48th St., 

 Philadelphia, departed this life Decem- 

 ber 6, 1916. During his life time Mr. 

 Griffiths was an ardent lover and stu- 

 dent of the birds, and a loyal reader 

 and friend of The Oologist. 



THE PIGEON HAWK IN COLORADO 



The Pigeon Hawk, Falco colum- 

 bianus, is said to be rather rare in 

 Colorado, and I think it is, for I have 

 failed almost to see it. For my small 

 bird collection I have taken but a 

 single specimen. One day in Septem- 

 ber a few years ago I was by a small 

 pond getting a few specimens of the 

 Northern Phalorope. The Phalarope 

 feed on the water, moving about like 

 miniature ducks. I had just shot three 

 or four and was standing on the shore 

 of the pond, delaying a little before 

 picking them up, when a Pigeon 

 Hawk, which I had not seen, swooped 

 down and caught up one of my birds 

 from the water and was making away 

 with it. That is the way this speci- 

 men came to be in my collection. 



Geo. E. Osterhout. 



A NOTE CONCERNING THE MI- 

 GRATION OF THE LARK BUNTING 



It is said that the Sparrows migrate 

 mostly by night, but concerning this 

 I do not have direct information. The 

 Lark Bunting is quite regular in its 

 arrival in north-eastern Colorado, 

 getting here from the 12th to the 15th 

 of May. Sometimes I have seen small 

 flocks of male birds feeding along the 

 way and working northward, evident- 

 ly having just arrived. But the in- 

 cident I speak of occurred on the fore- 

 noon of May 17th, 1913. I saw three 

 flocks following each other at short 

 intervals, and moving north-westward. 

 There were 75 or more birds in each 

 flock, male and female, the males 

 singing, tho' I should say not in full 



song; and they were flying rapidly in 

 long waves of an undulating flight, 

 and not more than 75 feet above the 

 ground. Evidently they were not go- 

 ing to stop in this immediate vicinity. 



Geo. E. Osterhout. 

 Windsor, Colo. 



MY IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER. 



The two rarest birds in my col- 

 lection are a pair of Ivory-billed Wood- 

 peckers (Campephilus principalis). 

 Some twenty years ago a good skin 

 of this bird could be purchased for 

 about eighteen dollars, while to-day 

 it would take about flve dollars — a 

 sure sign that the bird is becoming 

 scarcer as the years go by. In 1886 I 

 made my first ornithological collect- 

 ing trip to Florida, locating in Gulf 

 Hammock, Levy County. I found that 

 most of the people living in the Ham- 

 mock were acquainted with the Ivory- 

 bill, and the majority of the deer and 

 turkey hunters had shot one or more 

 of the birds. An old hunter that had 

 been living back in the Hammock for 

 fifteen years, informed me that he had 

 shot several Ivory-bills, but that he 

 had found them rather poor eating. 

 Think of it! A "Florida Cracker" 

 varying his daily diet of hog (sow 

 belly) and hominy with broiled Ivory- 

 billed Woodpeckers. However, it was 

 not until the next year that I secured 

 my pair of Ivory-bills. On my arrival 

 in 1887 I was shown the wings and 

 heads of three birds that had been 

 shot during my absence. I offered 

 the guides and hunters five dollars 

 for a male bird and two dollars and 

 a half for a female — not necessary to 

 offer them more, for what I offered 

 was enough to induce them to keep 

 their eyes open. On March 16th, a 

 guide by the name of Williams, while 

 out after deer, saw a male bird high 

 up on a cypress tree. Knowing that 

 if he was to shoot the bird with his 



