34 



THE OOLOGIST 



with red or yellowish tinge on back. 

 Middle of crown red. Tail is shaped 

 like scissors. And is nearly three 

 times as long as the body. The wings 

 and legs are short. The female is 

 somewhat like the male but is small- 

 er and of a duller plumage. The song 

 is "teezip," repeated. They are sel- 

 dom noticed on the ground. Only 

 when collecting material for a nest. 

 The tail being long and feet short they 

 find it more comfortable in the air. 

 Most of their food is caught while in 

 flight. They seem to be pretty good 

 fighters as I have noticed them chas- 

 ing hawks and crows and while exam- 

 ining their nests both male and female 

 play a tune over my head and many 

 times came in reach. They arrive nere 

 in April and are found on the prairies 

 looking for a nesting site in the scat- 

 tered mosquite trees. I have found 

 their nests on top of wind mills and 

 telephone poles but they prefer the 

 mosquite trees. The nests are large 

 and bulky, made mostly of rags, 

 strings, cotton, paper, and Indian to- 

 bacco. This Indian tobacco is a weed 

 named by the people of this country, 

 believing that the Indians smoked it 

 when they roamed the prairies here. 

 This tobacco forms about half of the 

 nest which is well made in the utmost 

 tops of the trees. After a week's hard 

 work four or five eggs are laid. The 

 eggs are white with brown spots on 

 the large ends mostly. Incubation be- 

 gins and if not molested nearly every 

 time they hatch the whole set. These 

 birds breed from Texas north to Kan- 

 sas. Spend the winter in southern 

 United States. 



R. Graham, Taxidermist. 

 Ft. Worth, Texas. 



County, Texas. I find them in the dry 

 valleys northwest of here. These birds 

 are not plentiful in this locality but 

 are common in other parts of the 

 state. They nested early in 1914. 

 April 12th, I examined three nests of 

 four eggs and one of five eggs. This 

 date is a month early according to my 

 back datas. These birds in this local- 

 ity select a lonesome place out of 

 sight and hearing of other birds and 

 builds the nect in low grass and briers 

 composed of grass and weeds and lin- 

 ed with finer grasses. 



No. 2, Phoebe. 



April 11th, 1915, I found a Phoebe 

 nest with three eggs in it, and on the 

 12th there were a set of four; no more 

 eggs were laid. The nest was made 

 of moss and grasses and was in a 

 sand bank near a spring. The eggs 

 were white and two of them had tiny 

 brown specks on the large end. Phoe- 

 bes are common birds but I have only 

 three dates of them nesting in this 

 county. 



No. 3, Bobolinks. 



May 17, 1915, I saw three bobolinks 

 two males and one female. This is the 

 first time they have been noticed here 

 during the nesting season. They were 

 in a flat of high grass near a creek. 

 And were noticed there several dif- 

 ferent times. It's hard to tell whether 

 they nested there or not as their 

 breeding range is from Kansas north- 

 ward. R. Graham, Taxidermist. 

 Fort. Worth, Texas. 



NOTES. 

 No. 1, Field Sparrow. 

 To my knowledge the field sparrow 

 nests in only one part of Tarrant 



The Federal Bird Migration Law. 



The editor hopes every reader of 

 this publication will do everything in 

 his power to see the complete and lit- 

 eral enforcement of the Federal Bird 

 Migration Law during this coming 

 spring. The only way that the water 

 fowl of this country can be preserved 

 from complete extinction is to enforce 

 this very sensible law to the letter. — 

 Editor. 



