6 



THE OOLOGIST. 



May 20th I found a Bed-headed Wood- 

 pecker's nest, containing six fresh eggs ; I 

 happened to pass the same snag several 

 days afterwards, and seeing a Woodpecker 

 fooling around, I pounded on the snag (our 

 way of finding out whether they are at home 

 or not) and was somewhat surprised when a 

 Bedhead flew out of the hole. I climbed up 

 and found six more fresh eggs. Twelve 

 eggs from one bird; who can beat it on a 

 Redhead. 



May 24th collected a set of three Killdeer 

 fresh. 



May 25th collected a set of thirteen Flor- 

 ida Quail, fresh; nest was by an old dead 

 tree, composed of grass mainly. 



July 24th collected a set of two Ground 

 Dove eggs, fresh. 



Now Mr. Editor, I did not intend to take 

 up so much of your valuable space and time, 

 but if this is not worthy of your notice, 

 please consign it to the Avaste basket and 

 oblige. With best wishes to all Oologists 

 I remain, Very truly, 



A. L. Quaintance, Archer, Fla. 



Destructive Westing. 



Sows /Serious Charges Made Against the 

 English Sparrow. 



Dear Sir: — Inclosed I send a clipping 

 from Lewiston (Maine) Journal which may 

 be interesting to the readers of the Oono- 

 gist and I think the writer is in the right 

 in regard to the English Sparrow. I find 

 that our native birds are fast disappearing, 

 so much so that our State passed a law to 

 prevent egg-collecting. But from a long 

 careful study of them, have proven to me 

 there are three dreaded enemies to our 

 Maine birds. First the Crow, second the 

 Squirrel, last and worst of all, the English 

 Sparrow. 



The English Sparrow destroys 60 per cent., 

 The Crow " 25 



The Squirrel " 10 " 



If any one disbelieves this, let him go 

 out and carefully watch these pests, and he 

 will come back convinced of the truth and 



say, "away with them." The above figures 

 are not of a days work, but of several yeais 

 careful study, and what I have seen; if 

 there is not something done, our State will 

 soon be minus our harmless birds. 



You will say, I have only 95 per cent. , 



what becomes of the 5 per cent., well they 



are destroyed by various means, snakes, &e. 



E. X., Maine. 



A great deal has been said and writ- 

 ten about the English Sparrow. It is 

 claimed on good authority that the fiist 

 successful colony of the birds was imported 

 to Portland, Maine, in 1858, and at about 

 the same time into New York, Brooklyn, 

 Philadelphia and other eastern cities, in 

 most cases the birds did well. They multi- 

 plied and spread gradually to neighboring 

 towns. But the process of diffusion was 

 slow at first, and it was not until 187U that 

 the species can be said to have established 

 itself throughout the eastern states, and to 

 have begun in earnest its westward march. 

 From this time until the present the mar- 

 vellous rapidity of its multiplication, the 

 surpassing swiftness of its extension, and 

 the prodigious size of the area it has over- 

 spread are without parallel in the history of 

 any bird. Like a noxious weed it has tak- 

 en root and spread itself over half our 

 continent before the people were awake to 

 the evil of its presence. For many years it 

 was looked upon with favor, and both food 

 and shelter provided for them. He is a 

 hardy, aggressive prolific bird, possesed of 

 more than ordinary cunning. He takes 

 advantage of the protection afforded them 

 by the proximity of man, thus escaping 

 nearly all the enemies which check the 

 abundance of our native birds. Its fecund- 

 ity is amazing, in the latitude of New York, 

 and southward it hatches as a rule, five or 

 six broods in a season , with four to six 

 young in a brood, thus estimating the an- 

 nual product of a pair to be twenty-four 

 young of which half are male and half are 

 females, and assuming further for the sake 

 of computation that all live with their off- 

 spring it will be seen that in ten years the 

 progeny of a single pair wil be 575,716,983 

 698. As the towns and villages become 

 filled to repletion the overflow move offinto 

 the country and the sparrows' range is thus 

 gradually extended. Occasionally, however, 

 it is suddenly transported to considerable 

 distances by going to roost in empty box 

 cars and travelling hundreds of miles. 

 When let out again it is quite as much at 

 home as upon its native heath. Our own 

 cars returning empty except for these stow- 

 aways, introduced the pests into St Johns, 

 N. B. , in 1883, and about the same time 



