THE OOLOGIST 



91 



cruel world" as yet. I then put the 

 mother back and went up to Mrs. 

 Flicker's hole. About 18 inches down 

 I found five partly incubated eggs ly- 

 ing on the sawdust. Eighreen inches 

 down; that left about six inches or 

 less between the bottom of the Flick- 

 er's hole and the top of the owl's nest. 

 Well I have read a number of accounts 

 where Flickers and Owls have tried to 

 live together and have also witnessed 

 several of these processes, but this is 

 the first account that I have either 

 heard of or seen where they have suc- 

 ceeded. 



Dudley De Groot. 

 San Francisco, Cal. 



Nesting of the Whippoorwill at New 

 Haven, Conn. 



The article on habits of the Whip- 

 poorwill in a recent number of THE 

 OOLOGIST has induced me to add my 

 experience on the breeding of this 

 bird, which while not extensive, may 

 perhaps be of interest. 



The birds arrive in this vicinity 

 usually about the first of May (May 

 2d, 1888, being my earliest record) 

 and their presence among us is soon 

 made known by the unmistakable song 

 of the male. In fact my record of ar- 

 rivals is oftener made from this evi- 

 dence than by actual sight of the bird 

 itself. They share the habit common 

 to most birds of being most musical 

 just previous to the nesting season 

 and sing most often in the vicinity 

 of the nest, or in other words, after 

 marriage they remain at home nights, 

 a trait of character by the way that 

 might well be emulated by certain 

 members of the genus homo. I can 

 vividly remember the first set of their 

 eggs that fell in my way, found en- 

 tirely by accident, too far incubated 

 to be saved whole but still a set of 

 whippoorwill; a bird of which at that 

 time I knew very little. This was 



fully forty years ago but I doubt 

 whether the sets taken since have 

 ever furnished greater pleasure. It 

 was, of course, upon the ground in a 

 slight depression among fallen leaves 

 entirely surrounded by mountain lau- 

 rel (or Kalmia) bushes. My next set 

 was taken several years later (June 2d 

 1878) on an island in the Connecti- 

 cut River, well wooded and again by 

 accident— two eggs fresh. 



The following year early in June 

 I was informed by a boy that he had 

 found a "Quail's nest in the woods, 

 containing two large white eggs spot- 

 ted with red," this being considerably 

 out of the line of Quail's eggs and 

 suspecting that they were whippoor- 

 wills, I induced him to conduct me 

 there and was disappointed to find 

 instead of two beautiful eggs a pair 

 of open mouths and four eyes set off 

 by pot bellied bodies covered with 

 a dirty yellowish brown. 



In 1880 I took a beautiful set of two 

 eggs near the site of my first set, 

 somewhat incubated but exceptionally 

 handsome and withal peculiar, each 

 egg having a very large blotch of lav- 

 ender in addition to other smaller 

 markings. Again in 1882 I was so for- 

 tunate, as to find a set of two fresh 

 eggs near my former home in a piece 

 of woods where the birds can always 

 be found in spring. A change of base 

 and business obliged me to forego col- 

 lecting to a great extent for several 

 years and I did not see a nest of the 

 whippoorwill again until the season of 

 1888. 



On June 16th while following a fe- 

 male chestnut sided Warbler that I 

 had detected skulking off with nesting 

 material in her bill I flushed a Whip- 

 poorwill by nearly stepping upon her 

 and looking down soon saw a pair 

 of the yellow downy young which by 

 the way are about as queer looking 

 objects as our fauna furnishes. This 



