THE OOLOGIST. 



87 



fire and warmed till it became able 

 to fly out of doors to its home. But 

 another night of pitiless rain finished 

 its earthly career and today I climbed 

 to its perfect nest and looked at the 

 four cold, pink-flushed white eggs. 

 Another tree phoebe's nest near this 

 shared the same fate. Deserted nests 

 of many other small birds near us, 

 with crows pilfering the stale eggs, 

 indicate the fate of the late owners. 

 Overflowed meadows such as we now 

 look out upon are unusual at this 

 time of the year. The two marsh 

 hawk's nests filled with eggs are a 

 foot under water, and the bittern's 

 site though not yet laid in is ten feet 

 from dry land. Mr. Bassett, a neigh- 

 bor, lost 31 chickens by this storm, 

 but saved the rest of his broods by 

 placing lighted lanterns in his coops. 

 Mr. Snow, another farmer, lost 50 

 chicks, and Mr. Girouard, 15. A cold 

 May storm always means destruction 

 to young grouse just out of the shell. 

 Irving Paine, a local farmer and a 

 crack shot, says that in the long, 

 cold rain, the young partridges 

 starve to death. Monday night Mr. 

 Paine started a woodcock and four 

 lively young. 



The birds of prey are nearly through 

 breeding, with the exception of harri- 

 ers and the two kinds of accipiters. 

 Great horned and barred owlets are 

 out of the nests in most places, and 

 red-tails and red-shoulders have lusty, 

 meat strengthened squabs able to 

 withstand the roughest weather. We 

 are only two miles from the Massa- 

 chusetts state line where the raptores 

 appear to be as abundant as around 

 Norwich. S. P. Willard of Millis, 

 Mass., writes to me of his hawking 

 trips this spring and I copy his notes: 



March 4, while walking through the 

 heavy woods with my wife, I saw an 

 old nest in a slender pine which had 

 a significant look. Leveling my 

 glasses on it, I saw the head of a great 



borned owl. I started right home for 

 my climbers, a two and a half mile 

 walk, came back, and climbed 72 feet 

 to the nest. The owl flew off when I 

 had taken three or four steps upward. 

 I found a nice set of two eggs with 

 incubation begun. The nest was very 

 small for the bird, outside of sticks, 

 and inside entirely freshly lined with 

 dry oak leaves. The nest, I judged to 

 be an old crow's nest, the lining was 

 the work of the owls. 



I started a barred owl from a hole 

 in an ancient chestnut tree May 12 

 by rapping on the trunk of the tree, 

 and on ascending, found two young 

 about ten days old. Did not disturb 

 the young, but will take another peep 

 next year. In April climbed to four 

 fresh sets of three red-shouldered 

 hawk's eggs and to one of four eggs. 

 I knew of two nests of the same spe- 

 cies despoiled in some unknown way, 

 and of four more nests in which I 

 trust the young will be safely reared, 

 most of them. Saturday, May 19th, 

 the eggs were so chipped that the 

 young should have been out the 

 next day. May 12, found a broad- 

 winged hawk's nest with two beau- 

 tifully marked eggs, and on May 18 

 again went to the nest and found one 

 more hawk's egg, showing signs of 

 incubation. On the same day found 

 a sharp-shinned hawk's nest, not yet 

 laid in, but with two or three feathers 

 adhering to it. I have also located a 

 pair of marsh hawks. 



"I don't see but what there are as 

 many birds as ever," is a remark I 

 have heard both in town and country. 

 This is usually repeated by one who 

 never had boyhood's egg-collecting fe- 

 ver (which is a special training) and 

 of course made without records or 

 data. After a close observation in the 

 field for forty years, with copious 

 notes on all local breeding species, I 

 do not hesitate to say that there is 

 a steady and noticeable decrease from 



