68 



THE OOLOGIST 



My note book reads June 14th, 

 while walking along the trolley track 

 which crosses a large salt marsh near 

 Savin Rock, I discovered a Redheaded 

 Woodpecker- at- work- excavating a 

 cavity in the top of a telephone pole. 



On July 19th I made a visit to the 

 nest which contained young and took 

 four photographs of the adult birds at 

 the entrance. 



The "Birds of Connecticut" gives but 

 two records of its nesting about new 

 Haven, one in 1893 and the other in 

 1909, and as I have been interested in 

 birds the greater part of my life and, 

 in all my roaming about the woods 

 since I was a boy this is the first Red- 

 headed Woodpecker's nest to come 

 under my observation 



It was very interesting to watch the 

 birds' actions at the entrance as they 

 never left it unguarded there being 

 one of the adults in with the young 

 at all times. 



With my glasses I would watch the 

 old birds as they left the pole and 

 flew across the marsh to a small patch 

 of woods and then down in the meadow 

 grass in search I suppose for insects. 



They would not be gone long and 

 when they returned would alight on 

 the pole a little below the entrance 

 and give a few grunting sounds and 

 the one inside would immediately 

 come to the entrance and fly away. 



Then the one with food would enter 

 and remain until the other returned 

 and give the signal to "beat it." 



I wanted very much to collect that 

 set of eggs but did not dare to run 

 any chances of getting mixed up with 

 the Telephone Co. so all I got was a 

 few pictures of my first "Red Heads" 

 nest. 



Nelson E. Wilmot. 



ye editor opened the season of 1919 

 with this unusually large set of Red 

 Shouldered Hawk's eggs. The nest, 

 30 feet up in a soft maple tree in the 

 over-flowed rive bottoms at Lacon. 

 Sets of five are unusually rare. Not 

 over 20 sets of this number having 

 come under our observation in the 

 handling of several hundred sets of 

 the eggs of this bird's eggs. 



339 a-5-1919 



The above mistic figures appearing 

 on five specimens record the fact that 



The Yellow-Billed Cuckoo 



The Yellow-Billed Cuckoo, although 

 rather common in East Texas, is 

 little know, except by those especially 

 interested in the study of birds. 



These birds are among the last to 

 arrive in the spring and the first to 

 start migrating in the fall. They ar- 

 rive about the middle of April or first 

 of May and start nest building almost 

 immediately. Their nests which are 

 frail structures, are composed of 

 coarse twigs and are placed usually 

 in a low bush, though sometimes 

 they build on the horizontal limb of 

 a tree, but never higher than ten feet 

 from the ground. They lay from two 

 to four eggs but on a few rare oc- 

 casions, I have seen as many as six 

 eggs in a set. When the first of 

 these eggs, which are about the size 

 of a pigeon &gg and a very light blue, 

 are laid, incubation starts. Often 

 there may be found young birds and 

 comparatively fresh eggs in the same 

 nest. 



This bird is one of the most bene- 

 ficial of all our native birds, being the 

 greatest enemy of the tent caterpillar. 

 In the spring and early in the sum- 

 mer when these caterpillars are doing 

 the greatest damage to fruit and nut 

 bearing trees, these birds will fly to 

 one of the caterpillar "tents" and will 

 sometimes eat every caterpillar before 

 leaving it, it being their principal food. 

 DeLoach Martin. 



