iio 



THE OOLOGIST 



This fruit grower had, by care and 

 painstaking work, succeeded in bring- 

 ing his apple orchard up to a point 

 where it was capable of yielding a 

 product valued at eight thousand dol- 

 lars a year, only to have the trees 

 girdled by mice and practically des- 

 troyed in one winter. Nailed up on 

 the orchard's barn door was the car- 

 cass of an owl which he had shot and 

 put up as a warning to other owls to 

 keep at a distance. After his orchard 

 was destroyed by mice he applied to 

 the agricultural authorities of his state 

 for a remedy. The expert sent to in- 

 vestigate cut open the stomach of the 

 owl'e carcass nailed to the barn door, 

 and, to the astonishment of the farm- 

 er, showed him the remains ot nine 

 field mice, which the owl had des- 

 troyed. This orchardist, by destroy- 

 ing owls and such like birds which 

 prey upon mice, had made it easy for 

 the mice to multiply and destroy his 

 trees. — The Classmate. W. A. Strong, 

 San Jose, Cal. 



A FRIEND TO BIRDS 



In Colorado Springs there lives a 

 man, Dr. W. W. Arnold, who acts as 

 medical missionary to all the birds in 

 that section. He has a hospital where 

 injured birds are given skilled medi- 

 cal care. There is another building 

 on his grounds which is known as the 

 bird orphanage, and here young birds, 

 bereft of their parents, are cared for 

 and protected until they are large 

 enough to take care of themselves. It 

 is said there are always fascinating 

 cases to be studied in both hospital 

 and orphanage. — The Classmate. W. 

 A. Strong, San Jose, Cal. 



With this issue of the Oologist we 

 inaugurate a slight change in the 

 make-up of the publication which we 

 hope will meet with the approval of 

 our friends. It has been the intention 



of the present management of the 

 Oologist for a long time to re-arrange 

 the make-up of the magazine but 

 owing to various unforseen matters 

 which have intervened we have been 

 unable to do so and even the present 

 arrangement is not what we ultimate- 

 ly intend, though it is an approach in 

 that dircetion. 



Editor. 



ANT EATS YOUNG ROBINS 



On May 26, 1904, at Wissinoming, 

 Pa., I found a robin's nest containing 

 four eggs, situated on a girder under 

 a large wood encased water main in a 

 ravine. When I next visited the nest, 

 in June 3, I found in it four half dead 

 nestlings several days old. They were 

 literally being eaten alive by large 

 black ants. The nest was deserted, 

 the parents undoubtedly had been 

 shot, so I mercifully killed the young 

 birds. They had been more or less 

 chewed by the ants. 



Richard F. Miller. 



P. M. Silloway is engaged in three 

 months field work on the birds of the 

 Palisades Interstate Park on the Hud- 

 son River north of the city of New 

 York for the New York State College 

 of Forestry. They are to be congratu- 

 lated on securing so competent a field 

 man. 



AN UNUSUALLY LARGE SET 



Edw. R. Ford of Chicago notes the 

 finding of • a set of 7 eggs of the 

 Meadow Lark in Worth Township, 

 Cook County, Illinois, about the 

 middle of May. This is an unusually 

 large set. 



Mr. L. L. Redick of Newington Cen- 

 ter, Connecticut, has recently returned 

 from a two year's absence in Australia 

 and one of the first things he does on 

 returning home is to renew his sub- 

 scription to the Oologist. 



