10 



THE OOLOGIST. W" 



AN ISLAND OBLITERATED. 



Swept by Gulf Storm — One of the Au- 

 dubon Bird Reservations Was 

 Drowned by the Sea — Another 

 Island Nearby Is Also Under 

 Water. 



(Publishers' Press.) 

 New Orleans, Dec. 18. — It was an- 

 nounced by the officials of the Audu- 

 bon Society that Grand Cochere isl- 

 and, 100 acres in area, one of the so- 

 ciety's bird reservations in the Gulf 

 of Mexico and the place where the 

 daughter of Thomas Taggart lost her 

 life several years ago, was swept into 

 the sea by the hurricane last Septem- 

 ber. F. M. Miller, president of the 

 society, and four trappers recently 

 made an excursion to the reservation 

 and found Bremerton island, another 

 of the group, under water. They also 

 found thousands of Pelicans with 

 broken wings in a dying condition. 



The Carolina Rail. 



Previous to the location of the great 

 Lackawanna Steel Plant at Stony 

 Point, then a part of the Buffalo park 

 system, the greater part being a large 

 swamp, occupied by the Florida Gal- 

 linule, Green Heron, Least Bittern, 

 Virginia Rail, Wilson Snipe, Sander- 

 ling, Plover, Red-shouldered Black- 

 birds and a great many rare warblers, 

 it was quite a treat for an observ- 

 ing Oologist to go over this ground, 

 where fiery furnaces and rolling ma- 

 chines shape the iron ore into rails — 

 a seething caldron of industry. 



Now we have to go considerably 

 further to watch the denizens of the 

 swamp. 



The Carolina Rail arrives from the 

 southern salt marshes: about the first 

 of May and full complements of eggs 

 can be found from May 22d to June 

 3d, these sets varying from 8 to 12. 



The accompanying picture of the 



nest taken May 27th, contained 16 

 eggs. It was impossible to snow the 

 16 eggs as some were laying on top 

 of others. 



We know of several finds of 21 and 

 22 eggs in one nest. 



The nests are easy to discover. 

 Coming near a nest the bird will raise 

 from nest, fly a short distance and 

 drop in marsb as if shot. Where the 

 bird flew up is a sure sign of the 

 location of the nest. 



We have taken several sets where one 

 egg was as large as that of a Ring 

 Rail. But this happens more frequent- 

 ly with the Virginia Rail. 



The Rails in our locality are hard- 

 ly ever shot, as they are in the salt 

 marshes and are therefore quite in 

 abundance. I know of a high place 

 in the swamp, where a wood chop- 

 per's camp had been broken up, and 

 I counted in a very small area, 82 

 nests. 



It is quite interesting to watch 

 the young Rail, how easily they skip 

 over the boggy swamp, looking more 

 like woolly balls than anything else. 

 They disappear at the slightest noise. 



The nest is a deep cup-shaped con- 

 struction of heavy swamp grasses 

 from the previous year, lined with 

 finer grasses. 



Towards fall they migrate from here 

 to the south to return to us the fol- 

 lowing spring. 



ED. REINECKE, 

 400 Elm St., Buffalo, N. Y. 



The Cerulean Warbler. 



The Cerulean Warbler was unus- 

 ually scarce here in Wayne county, 

 during the season of 1906, and even 

 while the migration was at its height 

 not more than three birds were noted 

 to ten last year. Two males were se- 

 cured on May 6; these were the first 

 of the season and all seen on that 

 date. Six, on May 20th, was the 



