*THE * OOLOGIS 



Vol. V, 



ALBION, N. Y., AUG. & SEP., 1888. 



No. 8 & 9 



Reminiscenes of 1886. 



During the summer of 1886, it was my 

 privilege to be in the woods and fields, the 

 larger part of every, clear day, and con- 

 sequently I saw a great deal of bird life, 

 and was able to carefully study the habits 

 of certain species, a few of which 1 here re- 

 cord. I think perhaps they may be of 

 interest to my Oologist friends. 



One of the most beautiful of our feather- 

 ed snmmer residents is the Ruby-throated 

 Humming-bird. Its nest is exceedingly 

 difficult to find, as the exterior is entirely 

 covered with minute bits of lichen, resem- 

 bling, to a casual observer, an old knot or 

 wart. Another reason is that the parent 

 bird when going to the nest, never fiies 

 directly to it, but hovers for a moment, a 

 few feet from the place and then darts so 

 suddenly to it that an experienced watcher 

 cannot always determine the course it has 

 taken . 



The nest of which I am about to speak 

 was commenoed on June 2 1886, and was 

 built in an old pear, which had hardened on 

 the tree without falling. This peculiar 

 nesting place was in an orchard about 150 ft. 

 from a dwelling house, and when I first saw 

 the birds sticking their bills into the fruit, 

 I supposed them to be feeding on insects 

 which had located there. As soon as they 

 had emptied the cavity however, leaving 

 nothing but the thick tough skin, they com- 

 menced to bring small peices of cotton and 

 paper which they deposited in the empty 

 pear-skin and by the 10th of June had com- 

 pleted as neat a little home as the birds 

 could wish for. The first egg was laid four 

 days after the nest had been completed, and 

 a second was added two days later, both 

 eggs being clear white, unspotted, 



I have seen it stated that a humming-bird 

 only took eleven days to hatch, but in this 

 case the first bird war not born until the 

 fourteenth day after the complement of 

 eggs had been deposited, and the second egg 



hatched during the following night. The 

 young birds stayed in the nest until they 

 were nearly as large as their parents and 

 were fairly pushed out of the nest for want 

 of room. 



Another interesting species is the Great 

 Crested Fly-cateher. I took great pleasure 

 in watching a pair of these birds construct- 

 ing their nest in an old hollow stump in the 

 woods. The nest occupied by them durin g 

 the previous year was in a hole in a butter- 

 nut t ree about 30 ft from the ground, only 

 only a short distance away, and the birds 

 undertook to move the nest from their last 

 years abode into their new quarters. Both 

 birds kept busy flying backward and for- 

 ward, carrying feathers, bark-lining and 

 dead leaves, for nearly a week and when the 

 nest was finally completed they had filled up 

 the cavity in the stump, which was f ully six 

 feet deep, to within two feet from the top. 

 The eggs, five in number, were of a brown- 

 ish color beautifully streaked with a rich 

 reddish brown. A very noteworthy fact in 

 regard to the cunning of this species is that 

 as soon as the first egg is laid a cast off 

 snake skin is placed in t he mouth of the 

 hole; evidently to frighten away would be 

 intruders, who "might otherwise disturb the 

 nest. These birds are very peaceful as a 

 rule, but when attacked I have s een them 

 drive away a pair of King-birds from the 

 vicinity of their, the formers, nest. 



The third and last species which I will 

 here mention is the Baltimore Oriole. This 

 beautiful bird, named on account of its 

 colors, after the noted English Lord Bal- 

 timore ; is. I think, withont a rival as an 

 architect. The instinct of the young bird, 

 may be, and probably is, to build a swing- 

 ing nest, but year by year it improves on 

 all other former attempts until the nest of a 

 five year old bird no more resembles the 

 first nest built by the same bird, than a 

 small white cottage resembles a f our story 

 brown stone house. I have in my study a 

 series of five nests of this species, built 



