40 



THE OOLOGIST. 



the Summer street veranda. At that 

 time it was a rara avis, but now the 

 rosebreast dominates everything in 

 song on our shaded summer streets. 

 This particular bird was stolen from 

 Wade's door in Dorchester, and after- 

 wards found and identified in a Tre- 

 mont street bird store by his pathetic 

 recognition of his owner. 



The raven which Mr. Wade brought 

 from Scotland, when freed found a 

 congenial home in the wild ledge back 

 of Summer street. In the fissures of 

 these rocks his American congener in 

 olden times no doubt bred in security. 

 The croaks and gutturals of this raven 

 often had half of the crows from "the 

 Commons" and "Hell Gate" hovering 

 overhead. When at last he was taken 

 from his high cave in this ravine he 

 put up the stiffest kind of fight to re- 

 tain his freedom. 



As a climber Mr. Wade was moder- 

 ate in his ambition, and on his lofty 

 finds I usually did the "shinning" 

 for him. I emphasize this point by 

 recounting the chief incident in a trip 

 we once made in early April over 

 Hearthstone mountain. Near Whip- 

 poorwill ledge I climbed to a Red- 

 shouldered hawk's nest which held 

 young Barred owls in the down. "I 

 am going up to see those squabs if I 

 lose a leg," said Wade. 



By chopping a twenty-foot stub I 

 got him up to the first limbs on the 

 tall chestnut. Then, crawling over the 

 big branches for thirty f et more, he 

 did fairly well. Then came a straight 

 shin of fifteen feet. Wade hugged 

 three or four feet of this, slipped back, 

 looked up and down, and said he dared 

 go no higher. My words of encourage- 

 ment that I had been up to this nest 

 half a dozen times safely, failed to con- 

 vince him. He began slowly to feel 

 his was down, when the mother owl 

 softly dusted his cheek with her noise- 

 less wings, lit on the next tree, and 

 began to snap her bill. 



This gave the climber new courage, 

 and in a second attempt he centrived 

 to swarm up within two feet of the 

 nest. Here he had another attack of 

 vertigo, and after ten minutes of 

 frightful nausea he lay pale and ex- 

 hausted on mother earth. He after- 

 wards described his sensations to me 

 of his last climb, in his characteristic 

 hyperbole. "I tell you, Rawson, that 

 when I was near those owlets, I felt as 

 if I was very close to heaven; but when 

 I took just one look down those seventy 

 feet, I was sure to take a tumble 

 straight to hell! I wouldn't climb an- 

 other tree like that for a million 

 dollars." 



The Other Side. 



It requires little encouragement to 

 launch the average oologist into a glow- 

 ing description of the pleasant side of 

 his field experieiice, but he exhibits no 

 such great hurry to portray the other 

 side. This is because he prefers the 

 illustrious light of a hero to the detri- 

 mental impression of a blockhead. It 

 is all right, of course, but I prefer 

 Mike's frank impartiality. There was 

 his turkey episode for instance. In- 

 stead of the reticence one might ex- 

 pect he took a humorous view and ad- 

 vertised it well. He was in the heavy 

 timber, far from human habitation, 

 when, partly concealed beneath a brush 

 heap and near the base of a beech tree 

 he perceived a turkey upon her nest. 

 No possibility of its being the domes- 

 tic article entered his mind although 

 he had been told that the wild bird was 

 long since exterminated. He could 

 hardly repress a shout of joy, but did 

 so, and cautiously approached, every 

 moment expecting Madam to flutter 

 away. She did nothing of the kind — 

 just sat and eyed him with a bearing 

 suggestive of calm contempt. When 

 within a few feet he thought of catch- 

 ing her and slowly extended her hand. 



