58 



THE OOLOGIST. 



disappearance is certainly not due to the 

 demands of the milliners ; and while the pot 

 hunter and the 'bad small boy -with a gun' 

 have probably destroyed their share, much 

 more influential factors in causing their dis- 

 appearance in my opinion have been the 

 demands of agriculture and commerce, 

 causing the destruction of the mast-bearing 

 forest where they fed and nested. The same 

 factors account mainly for the disappearance 

 of our larger game and watef birds — i. e., 

 clearing forests, draining swamps, and so on. 

 And we might as well attempt to stay the 

 progress of Old Father Time himself as to 

 try to check civilization in order to save 

 these birds. 



' ' 'But, ' it may be asked, 'must our civiliz- 

 ation eventually cause a birdless country?' 

 Not by any means ; on the contrary, we shall 

 find if we study the comparative abundance 

 of birds in general in most civilized sections 

 of our country, that birds are probably 

 more numerous, both in species and in in- 

 dividuals, than they were in the earlier days 

 of its settlement. 



' 'While I am in favor of increase of desir- 

 able birds, of the utmost dissemination of 

 knowledge respecting all birds, of the for- 

 mation of Audubon societies, if you please, 

 and of the popularizing of ornithology in 

 general, I do not think we gain anything in 

 a scientific or practical sense by distort- 

 ing, misstating, or suppressing facts, exag- 

 gerating figures, or by denouncing the well 

 established right of man to use all natural 

 objects for the furtherance of his necessities, 

 his convenience, or his pleasures. ' ' Ex. 



An Odd Nesting Place. 



I was reading what W. J. S. says about 

 "An Odd Nesting Place," and it put me in 

 mind of one that I have discovered. Next 

 to my house is the town clock, and in the 

 face of the clock are two holes made to 

 look like key -holes; in these holes, a pair 

 of English Sparrows have bred for two 

 years, and are now building a nest, making 

 the third year. There is no way of reach- 

 ing the nest without taking out the works 

 of the clock, so you see they are safe from 

 all collectors. When the clocks strikes, 

 the don't seem to mind it, and seem to be 

 quite tame. A. S. Brower, Ballston, N. Y. 



A Nest in a Horseshoe. 

 Birds at times select extraordinary places 

 in which to build their nests, situations 

 you would think the least likely to be 

 chosen for such a purpose, as, for instanee, 

 under a railway sleeper, where a lark's nest 

 was found not long ago, or in the breast 

 pocket of an old coat hung in an outhouse, 

 in which a robin's nest was found. Tin 

 cans, old kettles, earthenware mugs, flower 

 pots, and other miscellaneous articles have 

 frequently been recorded as containing 

 birds' nests and eggs, or young ones. Our 

 illustration gives a still more remarkable 

 place a bird has chosen in which to build a 

 nest, viz., the interior of a horse's hoof. 

 The nest is that of a spotted flycateher, a 

 common summer visitor,, and was found in 

 a hedge at West Burton, Sussex, and was 

 presented by a gentleman to the British 

 Museum at South Kensington, where it can 

 now be seen. It has four eggs in it. One 

 can only guess how the hoof got to be in the 

 hedge, but it seems likely that some 

 countryman had obtained the hoof with n 

 view of having it polished and the iron shoe 

 brightened, and so making an an ornament 

 of it, such as one often sees in the nat- 

 uralists' shop; he had probably got tired of 

 it and thrown it into the nearest hedge, when 

 it was adopted by our little bird as a nest- 

 holder. — Sel. 



»-«-* 



How to Pack Eggs. 

 Always use strong boxes, well made front 

 some light material. Cigar boxes, if well 

 made, answer the purpose very well. The 

 large sizes we do not consider as safe as the 

 smaller ones. Should the cover fit inside 

 of the end pieces of the box, nail a small 

 cleat across each end on the inside, thereby 

 preventing any possibility of the cover 

 breaking in and crushing the contents, 

 which would otherwise almost invariably 

 happen from the rough usage which the 

 box is sure to receive in the mails. Having 

 prepared a suitable box for the specimens, 

 proceed to pack them by wrapping each egg 

 carefully in a small roll of cotton. The 

 eggs thus wrapped can then be packed in 

 layers, snugly, but not tightly, in the box. 



