THE OOLOGIST. '- 



^l). 



on leveling my opera glasses, upon it, 

 I could see feathers sticking to some 

 of the twigs of the nest. Everybody 

 who has hunted hawks' nests knows 

 that this is a sure sign of occupancy 

 and it was in this case. The female 

 was on the nest and flew off when I 

 had climbed about ten feet. She was 

 very tame. She lit in the top of an- 

 other tree not over 20 yards away and 

 sat there much of the time I was 

 in the tree. Her plaintive calls, so 

 different from the harsh screams of 

 most hawks, soon brought her mate. 

 He wast noticeably smaller and his cry 

 was much more metallic and keener 

 than hers. He was also quite fearless. 

 At no time did either of them make 

 any hostile demonstrations. As this 

 was the first nest of the species I had 

 ever found, I decided to take the eggs. 

 When I got to the nest I found two 

 eggs in it. These I took, and as we 

 doubted if the set was complete, I 

 left in their place two 1 hen's eggs, one 

 boiled, the other uncooked. 



On May 18 we visited the nest 

 again. The hawk flew off as I started 

 up the tree. In the nest I found the 

 two hens' eggs and one more egg of 

 the hawk. This I took, leaving the 

 two hens' eggs. On May 26 I visited 

 the nest again and found the faithful 

 bird still busily incubating the two 

 hens' eggs. These I took and the 

 birds must have then abandoned the 

 nest, as when I went a fourth time no 

 sign of them was to be found. 



The nest was built in a strong 

 crotch. It was composed almost en- 

 tirely of dead pine twigs and 1 the only 

 lining was about two handfuls of pine 

 bark in scales of from half an inch 

 to two inches long. One of the eggs 

 was very heavily blotched with red- 

 dish brown, another was entirely cov- 

 ered over the entire surface with 

 fine markings, while the third was 

 rather sparsely blotched. They meas- 



ure in inches: 1:94 x 1.53; 1.95 x 1.53; 

 1.93 x 1.52. 



There are several subjects for spec- 

 ulation that arise out of this exper- 

 ience. First, it would seem as if col- 

 or means nothing to birds, as in this 

 instance their own eggs were heavily 

 marked while the hens' eggs were of 

 course white. As a further evidence 

 of this the writer well) remembers 

 that when he was a boy of about ten, 

 there was an old turkey hen at home 

 which sat for weeks, until there was 

 nothing left of her but skin, bones and 

 feathers, on a white door knob and 

 a piece of dry horse manure. 



Second, the nest instead of accum- 

 ulating more feathers as time went on, 

 seemed to contain fewer each visit I 

 made to it. This would seem as if the 

 feathers on hawks 1 ' nests might not 

 always get there by simply rubbing 

 off as the nest is used longer. There 

 were many more feathers about the 

 nest at the time of my first visit than 

 at my last one. 



Third, the generally accepted 

 theory, that each successive egg laid 

 by a bird will be less highly colored 

 than its predecessor, seems to be 

 again confirmed. Although Mr. Wat- 

 son Bishop proved that it will not 

 always hold true in the case of the 

 Canada Grouse, yet in this case the 

 last egg laid was very much more 

 sparsely marked than either of the 

 others and of the first two, one had 

 received very much more pigment 

 than the other. 



B. G. WILLARD, 



, Millis, Mass. 



More About the Bittern's Note. 



Mr. Reinecke's description of the 

 manner in which the American Bit- 

 tern produces his "pumping" or i; stake 

 driving" noise in the September Oolo- 

 gist, does not agree with my exper- 

 ience at all. 



