178 



THE OOLOOIST 



Easy Food For Red-head. 



One day last summer, 1915, while 

 out "oologying" I saw seven Red-head- 

 ed Woodpeckers, both young and old, 

 seated on a barb-wire fence in com- 

 pany with a pair of Logger-head 

 Shrikes. These latter were busily en- 

 gaged in catching grass-hoppers. 

 Cicadas and the like and impaling 

 them on the barbs. No sooner than 

 this is done a couple of Red-heads 

 would dive for it, and generally the 

 first one there got the impaled insect. 

 The Shrikes did not seem to care in 

 the least for they kept on the lookout 

 for more prey. 



I had never seen or heard anything 

 of the like before; have any of you 

 birdmen ? 



Ralph Donahue, Taxidermist. 

 Bonner Springs, Kansas. 



"The Texan Nighthawk. 

 Up until a few years ago I have 

 found the Nighthawk quite a hard 

 bird to locate their eggs, but have 

 about gotten them figured out right 

 now, I find as a general rule the Night- 

 hawk likes freshly turned earth to de- 

 posit their eggs on, and the best place 

 I have found is to look up some new 

 addition or town site where they have 

 graded off the roads and follow the 

 road from one end to the other, keep- 

 ing a close look at the ground about 

 25 feet in liead of me for the birds 

 to fiush from. I have used this plan 

 and always collect as many sets as I 

 have exchange for, but there are 

 others that collect here that don't have 

 as good luck as myself, you may find 

 a place that is a fine place for them 

 but you won't find any birds in that 

 location. It seems like they have cer- 

 tain parts of the country to nest in, 

 I have seen it when you could collect 

 all the sets one would need on the 

 south side of town and never find a 

 set north, east or west of town. 



George Emmett Maxon. 



Black and Turkey Vultures. 



Would like to ask someone that 

 knows more about the Vultures than 

 I do, if they take an off year and don't 

 lay. In this portion of the country 

 where we hunt the Vultures, it is very 

 hilly and one has a lot of climbing to 

 do to collect many sets. Now what I 

 would like to ask, when we went col- 

 lecting this year we found the birds 

 in twice the number than ever before, 

 and they seemed to be mating, but we 

 made five or six trips to their nesting 

 grounds and only collected about that 

 many sets; whereas in previous years 

 we could collect as many sets as one 

 would care to make trips, always tak- 

 ing 10 or 12 sets, each trip. 



George Emmett Maxon. 



DUCK HAWK IN NEW YORK CITY. 



Last winter a large hawk seemly 

 made his headquarters on the upper 

 stories of the Municipal Building in 

 New York City. Nearly every one 

 who saw it called it an Eagle and 

 large crowds stopped to watch it. It 

 proved to be a Duck Hawk and stayed 

 around the neighborhood all winter, 

 right in the heart of the city and 

 seemed to choose this building (which 

 is twenty-nine stories high) as its 

 favorite place. It lived on pigeons 

 and as there are always plenty of 

 them around eating in the streets, 

 etc., he must have gotten all that he 

 wanted and that probably induced it 

 to stay there all winter. 



I wonder if it will come back again 

 this winter. So far I have not heard 

 of it. But 1 saw a large one over the 

 city about a month ago which kept 

 sailing around and around for quite 

 a while; probably watching for some- 

 thing in the way of a good dinner of 

 pigeon to show up. 



Milton J. Hofmann. 



