18 



THE OOLOGIST 



Cowbird Impositions 

 I found Cowbird's eggs in nests of 

 nearly all of our different Sparrows, 

 Orioles, Vireos and other small birds, 

 but I believe finding a Cowbird's egg 

 in a Phoebe's nest is very unusual. 

 More so when the Phoebe's nest is in 

 a house. The nest shown in the en- 

 closed picture was found inside an old 

 deserted log house over the door lead- 

 ing into the kitchen to the parlor, if 

 such you can call the main livin g 

 room of the typical Ozark pioneer's 

 residence. The cowbird had to enter 

 the house by a window to get to the 

 Phoebe's nest and personally I believe 

 this is the limit. To get sufficient 

 light to take the picture we had to 

 take the nest out doors and attach it 

 to the foundation where it is now 

 shown. The nest was found May 7, 

 1915 and the eggs are now much 

 prized specimens of my collection. 



Another extraordinary place for a 

 cowbird's egg was in a Mockingbird's 

 nest in a peach tree, — the cowbird's 

 egg being smaller than the owners. 

 Still another unusual victim was a 

 Wood Thrush's nest on a white oak 

 bough, which contained two of the 

 owner's eggs and one of the Lazy 

 birds. 



The Blue Brosbeak is one of the 

 worst preyed on birds. In a nest near 

 a pasture a few years ago I found 

 three cowbird's eggs in varous stages 

 of incubation and one Grosbeak's egg 

 nearly ready to hatch. Another nest 

 contained two Cowbird's eggs and two 

 Grosbeaks. One rarely finds a nest 

 of this species that has not been 

 visited by a Cowbird. 



William Plank, 



Decatur, Ark. 



Unusual Nesting Site of the Rough- 

 winged Swallow 

 ..By S. S. Dickey, Washington, Pa... 

 There are occasional reports of 



Rough-winged Swallows nesting in 

 sewer pipes at the margins of streams. 

 In fact, I myself found these birds 

 inhabiting such places in a stone 

 wall along the Potomac river near 

 the border of Washington, D. C. 



However, on May 17 last, while I 

 was down at my old home in Waynes- 

 burg, Pennsylvania, I caught sight of 

 some rough-wings which gracefully 

 glided about the lawn of a little park 

 which borders on open hilly country 

 near our house. Eventually one of 

 these birds came flying down a paved 

 street at the edge of the park and 

 entered an old tile drain pipe which 

 jutted a few inches from a recently 

 cut perpendicular clay bank that bor- 

 ders on the street. There is a brick 

 house eight feet back of the bank and 

 a large church building thirty feet 

 across the street. Forty feet below is 

 the main street of our town along 

 which is much traffic every day. 



Investigations which I made here 

 revealed numerous weed stalks, coarse 

 grass, and a few small twigs which 

 the birds had dropped below the open- 

 ing. This led me to believe the swal- 

 lows were nesting, so I probed the 

 interior of the pipe with a slender 

 stick and out came the mother bird. 



May 24, Mr. R. C. Harlow came 

 down to spend the week end in the 

 field with me and upon my showing 

 him the nesting site he remarked that 

 it seemed indeed an exceptional place 

 for the home of the species. 



Some days later I had the good for- 

 tune to again investigate the place 

 and found the swallows carrying 

 green leaves into their home in the 

 pipe. Then on June 22 the young 

 could be heard when I appeared at 

 the opening. Thus I am satisfied that 

 the swallows nested and brought 

 forth their young in this strange se- 

 clusion. 



