Bulletin A T o. if. 75 



The nest is made of dried grass. Their song was very sweet and was 

 kept up the entire summer, except for a short time when they were 

 molting. In November they began gathering in flocks preparatory to 

 migrating. 



Sidney S. Wilson, St. Joseph, Mo. 



Notes on some Minnesota' Birds. — I made a trip of two weeks last 

 June, 200 miles south-west of St. Paul, to Jackson county — noted for its 

 many water birds, where the many small lakes and sloughs afford splendid 

 opportunities for nesting. 



Among the commonest breeding birds of the county are the Black 

 Terns, which nest by the hundreds in nearly every slough which has 

 water deep enough. In some places the water was not over ten inches 

 deep, while in the neighborhood of St. Paul the depth is never less than 

 two feet. In every instance where a barb-wire fence ran through the 

 slough, as often happens in submerged meadows, a colony of Black Terns 

 would be found nesting along the fence. 



A single colony of four pairs of Forter's Terns was found nesting in 

 the center of a large slough a mile or more across, in the water but four 

 feet deep. The nests were as large as the average Coot's nest and very 

 compactly built of dead rushes, eight inches high. On June 7th, the 

 nests all contained three eggs very well incubated. In the same slough 

 was an immense colony of Black-crowned Night Herons in a patch of 

 wild rice 500 feet from shore. The nests all contained from one to four 

 fresh eggs. Near by a nest containing nine eggs of the Ruddy Duck was 

 found on the top of a Grebe's nest which had been built on an old musk- 

 rat run — a common situation in this locality — in the midst of a colony of 

 fifteen or twenty nests of the Horned Grebe. The nests of the Horned 

 Grebe contained from four to seven eggs each, five being the average 

 number. 



The only nest of the Mallard I found while there was in a clump of 

 rushes about forty feet from the shore, and was very substantially built 

 of grass and rushes with very little down, and containing eleven fresh 



The Blue-wing Teal and Shovelers nest abundantly in the tall grass 

 about the shores of the slough, and many deserted nests as well as those 

 with incubated eggs were found. This region used to be a great breed- 

 ing place for tbe Sandhill Crane some twenty years ago, but it is a novelty 

 to see a bird now. 



The Long- and Short-billed Marsh Wrens also nest in the wild rice 



