118 



THE OOLOGIST 



Cass in a. 



Cassina for 1917 reaches our desk 

 good as ever — Cassina is always good 

 —in fact, one of the best publications 

 that reaches us. This issue contains 

 a biography of Samuel Wright, one of 

 the bright young Philadelphia oolo- 

 gists who has recently passed away — 

 a splendid article on the Birds of 

 Pocono by John D. Carter — an article 

 on the Evening Grosbeak by Samuel 

 Scoville, Jr., in which the prediction 

 is made that this rare bird may yet 

 be found nesting within collecting dis- 

 tance of Philadelphia, which we be- 

 lieve is well within the possibility — 

 and the issue concludes with a report 

 of the spring migration for 1917 by 

 Whitmer Stone, an abstract of the 

 proceedings of the Delaware Orni- 

 thological club for 1917 and a report 

 of members which is about one-tenth 

 as large as it ought to be. 



Book Note. 



The price of rare bird books seem 

 to be appreciating along with other 

 war necessities. Of course the cause 

 of it is laid at the door of the war. 



A copy of the "Nests and Eggs of 

 the Birds of Ohio," by Jones, has re- 

 cently been sold to a large library at 

 $300.00, and an elephant folio edition 

 of Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds 

 of America is now on the market, 

 priced at $7000.00. 



—Editor. 



"Odd Findings and Nesting Sites." 

 On April 16th, 1916 found Ramon 

 Graham and I canoeing up Lake 

 Worth, Ft. Worth Texas, in search of 

 Turkey and Black Vulture's eggs. 



Graham being crippled up from a 

 bad fall from out of the second story 

 of a new church building put him on 

 the bum, so he was paddling the canoe 

 along close to the bank, as he could 

 not walk very well, and I was follow- 



ing along out on the rocky banks and 

 ledges, keeping a sharp look out for 

 "Buzzard" nests. 



We went on this way for about two 

 miles, then when I jumped off of a 

 ledge to one farther down towards the 

 water, I could hear the well known 

 and familiar sound of Mrs. Turkey 

 Vulture fixing to make her slow get 

 away, by coming out of the cave awk- 

 wardly and slapping her clumsy wings 

 against the sides of the cave. "So I 

 said to myself out loud I says, says 

 I," back in the cave for a nice set of 

 these now precious eggs. 



While preparing to go in, and only 

 wishing that my father had have been 

 a contortionist, I happened to glance 

 down and saw the broken fragments 

 of what was a perfectly good egg at 

 one time. Well I put my body around 

 a little to one side and letting a little 

 day light in, I discovered a nice set of 

 (two?) eggs laying on a well packed 

 down dirty spot on the floor. 



Here is the gist of the whole story. 

 Instead of being two (2) eggs in this 

 nest, as I thought there was, there 

 was only one egg and a perfectly 

 round smooth stone, just the size of 

 the egg laying by the egg, which Mrs. 

 Turkey Vulture had been sitting on 

 these (eggs?) for about ten days. 



The stone was black and dirty as 

 though it had been rolled from one 

 end of the cave to the other quite a 

 number of times, then put back into 

 place with the egg. The stone was a 

 good deal' warmer than the egg. How 

 Mrs. Vulture had the misfortune to 

 lose one of her eggs and adopt the 

 round stone for a substitute, I can not 

 figure it out, as there was no other 

 stones this size laying around in the 

 cave where she could have rolled it 

 from. 



I collected the egg and also took 

 the stone along for a curiosity. 



Graham has collected a few hundred 



