154 



THE OOLOGIST. 



stout cord which I happened to have. 

 Taking a turn of the rope around one 

 leg, I started to slide down but stop- 

 ped a short distance below at a fourth 

 nest. Clinging- to the rope with one 

 hand and leg I chopped away the rock 

 with the other hand until the nest was 

 reached and the four fresh eggs safely 

 transferred to my mouth and later to 

 the ground. On June 14th, Mr. Cary 

 and I returned to the cliff and I se- 

 cured sets from the three nests which 

 I visited first on my former ascent. 

 On this trip I secured photographs of 

 the cliff and the nest and eggs. 



On June 2nd, Prof. Bruner located 

 another nest in the west branch of 

 Warbonnet Canon. This was not so 

 high as the others, being not more 

 than twenty feet from the base of the 

 cliff, and was easily reached by cut- 

 ting a slender pine and leaning it 

 against the cliff. But two eggs were 

 secured from this nest. In all, five 

 nests were found and sets secured from 

 each, two of four eggs, two of three, 

 and one of two. The eggs are pure 

 dull white more or less specked and 

 spotted by some black foreign sub- 

 stance which can be only partly re- 

 moved by washing. They are long 

 and pointed, as can be seen by the 

 measurements. The eggs in a typical 

 set of four measured respectively, 25 x 

 15, 22 x 14, 22 x 14 m m. The smallest 

 of the sixteen eggs collected measures 

 21 x 13 m m; the largest 25 x 15; while 

 the average is 22.7 x 13.6. During in- 

 cubation the parents are much attach- 

 ed to the nesting locality and fly con- 

 stantly back and forth before the cliff. 

 The female sits very close, often hav- 

 ing to be removed by force, which is 

 dangerous to the safety of the eggs, as 

 any one who has seen or felt their 

 claws can testify. The nest are invari- 

 ably infested by a hemipterous insect 

 much resembling the common bed 

 bug. Whether these insects live para- 

 sitically upon the young birds or not, 



I cannot say, but none were ever 

 found upon the adults. These birds 

 are quite common in all the canons of 

 the Pine Ridge where there are large 

 cliffs with fissures of a sufficient 

 height from the ground to suit the 

 birds. I also saw a few in August 

 around the large bluff at Gering, Neb., 

 known as Scott's Bluff. 



Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will. 



The Nighthawk is a characteristic 

 bird of eastern New York, and al- 

 though usually seen about dusk, it is 

 by no means a bird of night. All day 

 long, in the months of June and July, 

 it is seen zigzaging over the berry 

 fields, clearing the higher etherial re-, 

 gions of insects and thereby becoming 

 invaluable to man. Once in a while 

 the birds come and alight in the tall 

 pine trees studding the blue-berry 

 fields and so lethargic are its slumbers 

 when thus alit that a stone may be 

 thrown that hits the branch upon 

 which the sleeper sits, and still he 

 "waketh not." For a long time I had 

 hunted in vain for the nest of this 

 bird and at last came to the con- 

 clusion that it was not my fortune to 

 see a set taken from this locality, 

 when on Monday, July, 11, 1904, a 

 friend of mine, Axel Olsson, found 

 an egg while berry picking in the 

 above mentioned fields. The old bird 

 was flushed from the nest(?) and tried 

 various alluring methods to entice 

 him away, but he didn't "entice," 

 and took the imperfect set of one egg. 

 The egg, in my collection is rounded 

 on the ends and is beautifully mark- 

 ed with dark markings upon a lighter 

 ground. 



The Whip-poor-will, unlike its Cou- 

 sin, the Nighthawk, is rarely if ever 

 heard before dark, and keeps up its 

 insect-destroying pursuits until "Old 

 Sol" shows up in the east, when he 

 goes to rest. The whistle, from which 



