88 



THE OOLOGIST 



It is most interesting that in form 

 and color the eggs of humming-birds 

 (Trochili) very closely resemble those 

 of certain small reptiles, and examples 

 of these are given in Figure 11 of the 

 present article. The reptile eggs have 

 been kept in alcohol, and show up 

 dark in consequence. They also ex- 

 hibit some pitting due to handling, 

 which is unavoidable. When first 

 laid, however, they look, in some 

 cases, almost exactly like the eggs of 

 humming-birds, which is a very inter- 

 esting fact, when we take into consid- 

 eration the relationship of the two 

 groups. 



Figure 11 is also reproduced from a 

 photograph of mine, the eggs of the 

 hummers belonging to Mr. Court; 

 while I am greatly indebted to Dr. 

 Leonard Stejneger, and his assistant, 

 Mr. Paine, for having selected for me 

 the reptile eggs and for the loan of 

 them from the collection of the Divi- 

 sion of Reptiles of the U. S. National 

 Museum. The figures of them show 

 well the relative size of the eggs of 

 the species figured, as well as their 

 forms, as contrasted with the eggs of 

 the humming-bird; all are of natural 

 size. 



Six Cardinal Eggs. 



On April 27, 1915, while walking 

 through the woods, on an old vine 1 

 saw what looksd like an old nest. On 

 going up and looking in, two eggs 

 were found so 1 decided to come back 

 later. About a week later, as I ap- 

 proached the nest a female Cardinal 

 flew hurriedly away. The nest which 

 was three feet six inches up in an old 

 grape vine, held six freak Cardinal 

 eggs. Four of these eggs, the last four 

 laid, are natural Cardinal eggs, one 

 of the others has lighter markings and 

 the other is about the size of an In- 

 digo Bunting's egg. This egg is gray 

 blue about three-fourths of the way 



and a Long-billed Marsh Wren, brown 

 the other part, including the larger 

 end. In Reed's North American bird 

 eggs, it gives the number of eggs, 

 "three or four and sometimes live 

 eggs." Are six so rare? 



Alvin Baer. 

 Six is an unusually large set. — Edi- 

 tor. 



Nesting of the Grasshopper Sparrow. 



The hot days of early Summer bring 

 to mind pleasant memories in the pur- 

 suit of eggs of my favorite sparrow- - 

 the Grasshopper Sparrow. Mr. Harold 

 H. Bailey in his admirable work, 

 "Birds of Virginia," says: "In this 

 section the nest is one of the hardest 

 of all ground-nest-building birds to 

 find." The above seems to fit this 

 locality also, as 1 never collect over 

 one or two sets in a season. W^hile in- 

 cubating the female is very hard to 

 flush and hardly ever takes flight upon 

 leaving nest but rather runs ahead 

 on the ground for several feet before 

 taking flight. The nest in question 

 is always aptly concealed and it is 

 quite a task sometimes to ever locate 

 the nest after flushing the incubating 

 bird. It is a compact affair usually 

 arched over with exit on northerly 

 side; composed of grass and small 

 lootlets and lined with very fine 

 grass. 



During latter part of July 1911, I 

 stumbled across my first nest of this 

 species. 1 was crossing a hay field 

 and as I stepped over a small bunch 

 of hay left at haying time, out flew a 

 Yellow-winged Sparrow between my 

 legs. Upon lifting the hay, a deep- 

 cupped nest revealed three slightly 

 incubated eggs. This was quite ilke> 

 ly a second set which probably ac- 

 counts for the small size of the set. 



My second set was collected on June 

 18, 1912. While mowing a field of 

 clover hay a Grasshopper Sparrow 



