THE OOLOGIST 



11 



get The Oologist and I liope they will 

 enjoy it as much as T do, and renew 

 the subscription." 



Mr. Purdy is a veteran of the war 

 of the Rebellion, having enlisted with 

 Company F of the 24th Michigan In- 

 fantry, and was one of the Guard of 

 Honor at Lincoln't funeral when his 

 remains were placed in their final 

 resting place in the vault at Spring- 

 field, Illinois. Through all his years 

 as a civilian and a soldier, this patri- 

 arch has never lost his interest in the 

 birds nor his friendship for our little 

 publication. 



Eagle's Nest at Short Range. 



I am thinking to night of days long 

 gone, mellowed by passing years. 



Those were glad times when boy- 

 ish enthusiasm led for a field where 

 Song of Wood-thrush and Oven-bird 

 blended with rippling brook and leafy 

 shade. 



The sky was bluer and the bird- 

 song clearer then than now; yet some 

 way memory clothes those halcyon 

 days in gold. We associate eagles 

 with forest and flood and Mountain 

 crag, and their nesting with inacces- 

 sible rock; with lofty trees remote 

 from path of man; surroundings be- 

 fitting so fierce a creature. 



But the following examples will 

 show how varied are the habits of 

 this great bird. It was in 1873 I met 

 with the first of these; a genuine Bald 

 Eagle's nest placed twelve feet from 

 the ground at the branching of a gnar- 

 led, under-grown post-oak tree which 

 stood in a brushy, hilly thicket a half 

 mile from my father's house and not 

 more than six rods from a public road. 

 The nest also was of the modest form; 

 a small platform of twigs on which 

 was placed a large cup-shaped nest 

 smoothe and deep, of soft grass, shred- 

 ded corn-husks and corn silk, a 

 unique structure, compact and thick- 



walled; an ample liome for the two 

 eaglets which occupied it until they 

 were big birds and deserted the hum- 

 ble place for the high branches of a 

 tall, dead red oak tree which stood 

 on a great ridge where daily they 

 could be seen. At the approach of 

 an intruder they would fly screaming 

 away, only to return after a time to 

 their wanted perch. 



Only on the occurrence of a great 

 ring hunt which frightened most of 

 the "prairie chicken" and other game 

 from the region and netted one wolf, 

 did the Eagles take their departure 

 for other parts. 



Another of these unusual nests I 

 found during the spring of 1882 in a 

 small elm tree in a wood where I 

 frequently hunted for nests of the red- 

 tailed hawk — of which splendid eggs 

 I still retain a series, of these eggs 

 Judge John N. Clark once said "they 

 are the best of the kind I have ever 

 seen." 



This nest was similar in every 

 way to the first, but of its history I 

 know little. Since then I have sought 

 these great birds in their wildest 

 haunts and been chased by them, and 

 thrilled by the shrill scream, but nev- 

 er have I been more interested than 

 by boyish studies of these two lowly- 

 born young Eagles. 



J. W. Preston. 



Bald Eagle. 



One day while sitting on the porch 

 of a fiat in Waterbury, Connecticut, 

 I noticed some men across the street 

 staring up into the sky and using a 

 glass also. I crossed over to find what 

 it meant, and looking up I beheld 

 something grand to me, something I 

 had wished to see, but had never had 

 the opportunity. Away up in the blue 

 ether, were a pair of magnificent 

 Eagles, which the man with the glass 

 said were Bald Eagles; around and 



