no 



THE OOLOOIST 



at an approaching blizzard truly touch 

 a responsive cord. 



With the warm south winds of 

 March, the robin, the blue bird, and 

 the blue jay return and are gladly "wel- 

 comed. They are the leaders of the 

 joyful train of visitors that come to 

 pass the summer with us. In April 

 the meadow lark, the flicker, and the 

 wren come, and in May a great happy 

 throng arrives, namely: the thrush, 

 the bee martin, the song sparrow, the 

 red headed woodpecker, the sap suck- 

 er, the heart bird, the chickadee, the 

 oriole, the whippoorwill, and the hum- 

 ming bird. Later, in June, the cat 

 bird and the summer yellow bird also 

 make their appearance. 



Being alone much of the time one's 

 attention is attracted by the peculiar 

 behavior of birds and scenes such as 

 follow may be observed: 



This year a pair of wrens came to 

 the old apple tree in the trunk of 

 which the flickers lived last year and 

 the year preceding. They found a 

 hollow through a knot hole on a 

 branch at some distance above the 

 old flicker home. At once they start- 

 ed housekeeping and were well estab- 

 lished when the flicker pair arrived. 

 After a series of battles between the 

 two families the flickers took posses- 

 sion of their hollow trunk. They gave 

 it a thorough housecleaning, remov- 

 ing all loose fragments and dirt, and 

 were once more at home on the flrst 

 floor of the apple tree in a perfectly 

 clean and comfortable nest which soon 

 contained three beautiful white eggs. 

 Meanwhile a robin and his mate oc- 

 cupied a snug nest in the third story 

 among the swaying green branches. 

 That surely must have been a happy 

 apple tree. 



The low dense plum tree suited the 

 sweet voiced brown thrushes best and 

 their brood was safely sheltered there. 



A small cavity in a telephone post 

 made a home for the blue bird. 



The song sparrows built in the clus- 

 ter of virgin's bower vine on the west 

 porch and soon four small pearly 

 white eggs lay in the pretty nest. 



The sparrows, blue jays, thrushes, 

 orioles, heart birds, cat birds, robins, 

 and others came to pick crumbs or 

 drink water near the door. They be- 

 came very tame, more so, it seemed, 

 than is common. Often as many as 

 ten birds, representing several spe- 

 cies, were grouped about the water 

 dish, due no doubt, to the scarcity of 

 drinking places. 



One day the thrushes chased a 

 squirrel along the telephone cable 

 which was near their nest in the plum 

 tree. 



A motorcycle carrying two persons, 

 a lady and a gentleman, stopped under 

 a large tree near a house across the 

 street. The lady remained in the ma- 

 chine while the gentleman went-to the 

 door. A pair of blue jays had their 

 nest on one of the upper branches of 

 the tree, and seeing the scarlet paint- 

 ed machine, and doubtless terrified by 

 the unusual noise, seemed to think it 

 their duty to rid themselves of this 

 monster, and darted violently and un- 

 mercifully at the lady in the machine. 

 Although the lady at first smilingly 

 waved off their approach the birds 

 continued the attack with increased 

 violence which caused a speedy re- 

 turn of the gentleman and a timely de- 

 parture of the intruders. 



M. L. Fitzpatrick. 

 Bethany, Xebr. 



Reply to Mr. Blincoe. 

 In the May Oologist, 1917, Mr. Blin- 

 coe called to attention the fact that 

 I had written of the Phoebe arriving 

 here about the same time as the King- 

 bird. What I should have said was 

 Kingfisher instead of Kingbird. 



