THE OOLOGIST 



159 



After Twenty-five Years 

 By H. H. Johnson, Pittsfield, Maine 

 Today, June 10, 1919, I made a visit 

 to one of my old haunting grounds. 

 This marsh once a mowing field, was 

 caused by the backing up of water 

 from a dam. The place where, in my 

 youth, I did most of my fall haunting, 

 finding there many ducks. Black 

 Ducks, Pintail, Mallard, Scoters, Blue 

 and Green-winged Teal. Also if the 

 water be low, many Wilson Snipe and 

 the various shore birds. Pectoral, 

 Least, Semipalmated, Solitary and 

 Spotted Sandpipers, Greater anti Les- 

 ser Yellow-legs, some of them in 

 flocks of hundreds. The Marsh 

 Hawks, American Bittern, Blue Herons 

 were common, Pied-billed Grebe were 

 there, also the Red-winged Blackbird 

 and what we then called and I still be- 

 lieve to be the Purple Grackles in 

 flocks. How vividly I recall how my 

 nerves would jump with excitement 

 when Jack Snipe would suddenly rise 

 from under my feet with a cry of 

 "scape, scape" and many did; zigzag- 

 ging first to the right, then to the left 

 and so away safely, when, had he held 

 to the right and like the Irishman's 

 bird, been where I shot, he would 

 have been a dead Snipe. Sometimes 

 I have watched their flight after a 

 miss and after flying nearly out of 

 sight the Snipe would return to alight 

 near where I had flushed the bird, be- 

 fore alighting. The Wilson Snipe does 

 not hold this zigzag course only a few 

 rods but soon straightens out in direct 

 flight. Again five or six would start 

 up one after the other and from all- 

 sides with that saucy "scape" keeping 

 my nerves leaping until I nearly had 

 the St. Vitus dance. In alighting the 

 Snipe does not skim down gradually 

 to the earth but drops almo'st directly 

 down. There were not many ducks 

 on the marsh in the middle of the day, 

 most of them except the Teal spend- 



ing the day in the out away portions 

 of the pond, the sloughs and flooded 

 swamps around about. The duck 

 shooting consisted mainly of one tak- 

 ing a position or stand and awaiting 

 for them to fly in at sundown. A place 

 among the standing trees of the flood- 

 ed swamps being the best, the ducks 

 coming in one or twos, no flocks, and 

 was all wing shooting. Thus with the 

 help of the snipe and ducks I became 

 in time a fair wing shot. In the breed- 

 ing season this marsh and the sloughs 

 around about became the nesting sites, 

 of scattered Black Ducks, numerous 

 Pied-billed Grebes, American Bittern, 

 many Red-winged Blackbirds, Purple 

 Grackles, Tree Swallows, Kingbirds 

 and a few Rails. 



Today I found the marsh much 

 changed, where once it was marsh 

 grass with solid footing, the cattails 

 and other water grasses fill the space 

 forming a mat on top of the water, 

 but which allows one to sink down at 

 each step, making it hard walking. The 

 birds were conspicuous by their ab- 

 sence. Where in former years I would 

 have found a hundred pair of Red- 

 winged Blackbirds nesting, today I 

 found six nests, three with four eggs, 

 one with two eggs, one which con- 

 tained four eggs, but had been des- 

 troyed by something making holes in 

 two, the other unharmed nest desert- 

 ed and one completed nest but without 

 eggs. 



All of these nests were made of 

 fine marsh grass and situated in the 

 cattails. Of the Grackles I noted 

 none. Kingbirds, one pair, no nest 

 found. The stubs where the Tree 

 Swallows nested are all gone in thai 

 locality, thus no nests were found 

 though a few of the birds were noted. 

 A Tree Swallow which has a nest near 

 my home, using a hollow top rail of a 

 pasture fence, has built a nest of fine 

 grasses lined with feathers, some of 



