the oologist 



75 



opinion, the best collector of Warb- 

 lers' eggs that breed on the ground 

 in the country. He seemed to have 

 the faculty of going to the spot in the 

 woods where a nest was located; in 

 a few minutes a task that would take 

 the rest of us perhaps several hours. 

 Ladd's success in finding the nest of 

 the Worm-eating Warbler, one that all 

 collectors who have searched for it is 

 difficult to discover was phenomenal. 

 He collected a magnificent series of 

 them in his day and many sets of his 

 take may doubtless be found in vari- 

 ous cabinets. I have a very fine lot 

 of sets that he took in my cabinets 

 today, including perhaps the most 

 wonderful clutch in my entire collec- 

 tion, a runt set of five perfect little 

 miniature worm-eating Warblers, only 

 measuring .42 x .36, .42 x .36, .45 x .37, 

 .46 x .36, .46 x .36. An extraordinary 

 feature was that this set was in a nest 

 with a young Cowbird and also con- 

 tained an addled cowbird's egg. It 

 was certainly remarkable the young 

 Cowbird should not have broken their 

 eggs. Of course they had no yolk and 

 consequently showed no traces of in- 

 cubation. 



Ladd a few years later went down 

 to North Carolina and took a number 

 of fine sets of Cairn's Warbler prov- 

 ing he was just as good a collector on 

 strange territory as his own familiar 

 Chester County. 



In speaking of the Worm-eating 

 Warbler perhaps it is not generally 

 known that Thomas H. Jackson found 

 the first set of eggs of this species 

 ever discovered in June, 1869. Mr. 

 Jackson still possesses this valuable 

 and interesting set. During the season 

 of 1886 I had a somewhat sad experi- 

 ence with the Acadian Flycatcher. I 

 found several nests with fresh eggs 

 near Philadelphia in the early part of 

 June. The latter' part of the month 

 I was in Chester County, Pa., and on 



the 25th, 28th and 30th, I found four 

 or five sets also with fresh eggs. Why 

 there should have been such a differ- 

 ence in the nesting dates within a dis- 

 tance of 30 miles it is difficult to con- 

 jecture. The Chester County sets were 

 in such an out of the way place that I 

 feel sure the birds had not been dis- 

 turbed before. A remarkable instance 

 happened in connection with the set 

 taken on June 25th. 



The nest was situated far out on a 

 limb and the only way the eggs could 

 be secured was to pull the limb down. 

 The nest contained three eggs of the 

 Flycatcher and one of the Cowbird. 

 While I was up the tree bending the 

 limb down so that my cousin on the 

 ground could reach the eggs, one of 

 them fell to the ground. My cousin 

 secured two of the Flycatcher and the 

 Cowbird's eggs and then asked me if 

 I didn't want the egg on the ground. 

 I said, "Isn't it broken to pieces?" 

 And greatly to my astonishment he 

 said, "It is not." This is the one case 

 in my experience of an unblown egg 

 falling from a height of at least six 

 feet without being damaged in any 

 way. The one explanation that I can 

 offer is that being in the woods it 

 must have landed on a bunch of leaves 

 and thus largely has broken the 

 force of the fall. 



One of the most interesting of my 

 oological reminiscences is the first 

 time I visited Washington and saw 

 the great National Museum Collection 

 of eggs. In the latter part of Decem- 

 ber 1886, (the 25th to be exact) my 

 father and I went to Washington at 

 the invitation of Major (then Capt. 

 Bendire). What impressed me the 

 most was the wonderful series of 

 Waders that the National collection 

 possessed. To this day this portion 

 of the collection is the finest and no 

 private collection compares with it in 

 series of rare Sandpipers, Plovers, 



