8 



THE OOLOGIST 



•slimy ooze and probed its Tbill among 

 the sticks and leaves. Our thoughts 

 were all aroused and we agreed that 

 this new feathered friend must be a 

 crane, — so long were its legs and 

 crane-like was its beak. 



Some years later it was my good 

 fortune to be allowed to accompany 

 Mr. J. Warren Jacobs on bird trips to 

 the fields and woods, and this untir- 

 ing naturalist taught me that the won- 

 derful crane-like bird is the spotted 

 sandpiper and told me much about its 

 habits. 



Eventually I learned to know the 

 Bartramian and solitary sandpipers, 

 and among my most cherished mem- 

 ories are those of reading of these 

 birds in B. H. Warren's "Birds of 

 Pennsylvania." What great ideas we 

 boys got from this useful treasure- 

 book, — dreams of the North where 

 the birds nested in countless hordes 

 and where eggs of the rarest kinds 

 might be collected by just tramping 

 about the prairie sloughs. 



And I find it even yet delightful to 

 cultivate the imagination of just such 

 paradises, where the birds and woods 

 and all live things are as they were 

 before men became such mercenary 

 creatures and laid waste to the works 

 of nature. 



The Future 



The Oologing for 1920 will be more 

 valuable that it has been for a long- 

 time in the past, because of the fact 

 that under the ' new laws it will be 

 possible for us to advertise for sale 

 for scientific purposes bird skins and 

 birds eggs. Heretofore such has not 

 been the case. New museums, and 

 private collectors can lawfully pur- 

 chase such material. It is hoped that 

 there will grow up in the country a 

 legitimate, collectors and dealers, in 

 this class of goods, as there is surely 

 a proper place for such. Commercial- 



izing nature study, is undersirable, 

 but there should always be some place 

 where the great public museums and 

 scientific private collectors could go 

 for needed additions to their collec- 

 tions. There should never be a place 

 for those who only see the dollar 

 mark on a bird's skin or egg. We 

 will do all that we can to further the 

 cause of legitimate dealers, and will 

 take a delight in exposing all unlaw- 

 ful or fraudulent transactions. 



The Editor. 



Some One Should Shoot the Boy 



We were at Whitefish Point, Mich., 

 two miles west of the light house on 

 the point and thirty or forty rods 

 from the lake shore and in April the 

 hawks gathered there in flocks and 

 during the middle of the day from one 

 to three flocks of from twenty-five to 

 one hundred could be seen high in 

 the air, circling around and apparent- 

 ly staying in the same place as long 

 as I could watch them. They were 

 seen for a week or two. 



A boy that lived a few rods from 



where we were viisting wrote me a 

 year or two after that he stood at 

 their front gate and shot 10 Sparrow 

 Hawks in 10 shots in 10 minutes. The 

 Hawks were chasing Blue Jays and 

 other birds. 



I saw flocks of Blue Jays there of 

 a hundred or more flying around like 

 we see swallows over a pond of water. 



Delos Hatch, 

 Oakfield, Wis. 



Indian Arrow Heads 

 I have found a number of perfect 

 Indian arrow heads in and around 

 camps. The best time that I find to 

 hunt them is after a rain. I just take 

 a stroll over the sand hills and hardly 

 ever fail to find one or more. 



Ramon Graham, 

 Fort Worth, Tex. 



