THE OOIXKilST 



39 



[It is not a rare occurrence for migra- 

 ting birds to lay eggs during migra- 

 tion. 



I know of authentic records of this 

 occurring with Yellowlegs, Solitary 

 Sandpiper and Shoveller Duck. 



Ed.] 



The Quail Trap. 



Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin 

 By C. L. Rawson. 



The Quail Trap, Midwinter, 1905.— 

 The mild ten days in the middle of 

 January aioused a little activity among 

 local birds. On January 18 and 20 I 

 saw tobins in the Public Gardens, 

 Boston, and one at the entrance to the 

 subway on the Common, while the 

 Frog pond was covered with skaters. 

 January 10 I drove from Putnam to the 

 English neighborhood near the state 

 line on the driver's seat of a public 

 hack. From this lofty perch, among 

 many winter birds, I saw a group of a 

 dozen associated robins and bluebirds 

 and a single lone wacup. January 10 

 and 11 I went into the Quail Trap 

 woods to read this winter's hierogly- 

 phics on the snow. There were rabbit 

 tracks innumerable, many signs of 

 squirrel and mice, and some imprints 

 of skunk, mink, jays and crows. In 

 an open barway, from wall to wall, 

 the different rodents had made a beat- 

 en path, plainly flanked by a weasel 

 as big as a ferret. Indistinctly seen 

 among a lot of hound and bird dog 

 tracks, were footprints which I made 

 sure were bobcats, and after a little 

 search, again, as last winter; I found 

 the track of a northern white hare. I 

 measured and compared these impress- 

 ions with the feet of a jack rabbit which 

 I just received from Manitoba. The 

 hare's front track was larger, but the 

 jack made greater displacement be- 

 hind. 



Our old cock grouse still bears a 

 charmed existence. Gunners who 

 have shot at him during the late open 



season tell me that he uses all the 

 known artifices of old birds, by Hying 

 straight away, behind the trunks of 

 hemlocks, by "towering" above the 

 tops of bushy trees, and by not "flush- 

 ing" till the gunner passed by. Three 

 young grouse were spared in our woods 

 this year, and their tracks were seen 

 in several places. The impression of 

 Red Ruff in the snow is in keeping 

 with his size. To a novice it looks 

 like the track of a big partridge cochin 

 cock, and an expert cannot help notic- 

 ing its resemblance to a ptarmigan's, 

 it is now so heavily furred. 



The recent death of Joseph M. Wade 

 of Boston recalls many sunny days a 

 birding with him in local woods, and 

 happy hours in his Laurel Hill study 

 collaborating on bird sketches for va- 

 rious journals. His off-hand mono- 

 graph on the house Phoebe stands to- 

 day the best thing extant on the sub- 

 ject. I have his special interleaved 

 copy of the De Luxe Nests and Eggs of 

 Southern Ohio, now out of print, and 

 several rare foreign bird books from 

 his library, rich in unique Audubon- 

 iana and Wilsoniana. There is a set 

 of Long-eared owls in my collection 

 which he took from a Cooper's hawk's 

 nest near Rockville. I have also sets 

 of Osprey taken by him from rocks, 

 bar-posts, savins and low hornbeams 

 on Plum Island, in the halcyon days 

 before government occupation. 



I recall his delightful enthusiasm 

 when I showed him, one morning in 

 early June, "in situ," fourteen nests 

 of Parula warbler containing three 

 score of eggs, showing every shade of 

 variation. Wade thought it "remark- 

 able that in all the pensile nests we 

 examined there v\as not a single lazy 

 bird's egg." 



Many people in the bank building 

 can remember the song of Wade's 

 trained grosbeak, which could be heard 

 for two seasons all along Shetucket 

 street, when the cage was hung out on 



