THE OOLOGIST 



81 



what they suppose to be eggs of the 

 White-tailed Hawk. In that case they 

 are more likely those of Swainson's 

 Hawk which is common all over the 

 Texas range of the White-tailed Hawk. 

 I found Swainson's nesting on Padre 

 Island and in the valley of the lower 

 Rio Grande and elsewhere to the 

 Nueces River. They nest often in the 

 same localities that the White-tail 

 does, but they lay three eggs more 

 often. Reed, in his North American 

 Birds Eggs, says that the eggs of the 

 White-tailed Hawk are generally im- 

 maculate, but I have found that ninety 

 per cent of the sets have one or both 

 eggs marked. 



D. B. Burrows. 

 Lacon, Illinois. 



unusual bird for this territory. Are 

 you sure of the identification. — Editor 



CORRECTION. 



Phillip Laurent has called our at- 

 tention to the fact that in the publi- 

 cation of his article on page 65 of the 

 last Oologist, we make him say that a 

 good skin of the Ivory-billed Wood- 

 pecker could now be bought for about 

 Five Dollars. This should have been 

 Seventy-five Dollars. 



MOCKING BIRD IN WEST HAVEN. 



A Mocking Bird has spent the winter 

 near the center of West Haven. It 

 arrived November 8th and is still pres- 

 ent at this writing. This is an un- 

 usual occurence and we are now won- 

 dering, 'will he or she find a mate and 

 nest here in Connecticut.' 



N. E. Wilmot. 

 West Haven, Conn. 



RARE SPECIES. 



The Snowy Owl is quite plentiful in 

 and about Spokane. I have also seen 

 the Cardinal Grosbeak lately and sev- 

 eral large flocks of the Waxwings. 



Fred E. English. 

 Spokane, Wash. 



The Cardinal Grosbeak is surely an 



THE OOLOGIST. 



That, once a reader of The Oologist, 

 always such, is demonstrated by a 

 letter just received from Earl R. 

 Smith, which in part says: 



"Many years ago when a lad on a 

 farm, I and my brother were constant 

 subscribers to The Oologist, but time 

 changed the course of our lives and 

 with that change we lost the address 

 of the paper. My brother and I are 

 now separated the width of the United 

 States, but we still own our oological 

 collection and add new specimens 

 every year." 



Mr. Smith again renewed his sub- 

 scription for himself and brother to 

 The Oologist after having lost track 

 of it as he says for many, many years. 



AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE 

 ORCHARD ORIOLE. 



(A. O. U. 506 Icterus spurius) 

 The Orchard Oriole is a common 

 nesting bird in the vicinity of Bards- 

 town, Kentucky, arriving in the spring 

 about April 23rd. At least one pair 

 annually nests at the home of the 

 writer, generally selecting the top of 

 a peach tree as a nesting site. 



On the morning of May 23rd, 1916, 

 while at work in the garden, a female 

 Orchard Oriole was observed to alight 

 in a patch of blue-grass, and in a few 

 seconds flew away to a peach tree 

 with a piece of grass in her bill. Ap- 

 proaching the tree the oriole could 

 be seen weaving the grass into a nest 

 near the top of the tree, and a male 

 bird could be heard singing in the 

 trees nearby. 



On the 30th day of May, I climbed 

 to the nest. The female was on and 

 did not leave the nest until I was with- 

 in three feet of it. Standing in a fork 

 and pulling the limb with the nest 



