12 Joint Bulletins 4 and 5 



standing its loveliness it is unloved, although its fruit is edible and 

 is sometimes preserved by the housewife. 



My last find was a tiny bit of rather soiled-looking cottcn flannel, 

 which Prof. M. L. Fernald of Harvard University kindly identified as 

 Erax multicaulia var. Drummondii; it is not described in Gray's Manual 

 and had never before been listed from Oklahoma. During my stay I 

 did not find any orchids nor did I see any ferns; the latter probably*- 

 because that section is quite dry and there is little standing or running 

 water as compared with Vermont. 



That part of the state has not been opened for white settlement 

 many years and the flora for the most part remains as of old. But 

 conditions are rapidly changing and the wild flowers will disappear as 

 in older states. 



At present it is a paradise for the botanist and it should be 

 thoroughly exploited before it is too late. My observations were most 

 superficial and by no means represent the reward of an active, prac- 

 tical botanist, yet more than once I came home with 20 or more new 

 finds, nearly all seen from a moving automobile. 



NIGHT OBSERVATION OF BIRDS 



Mrs. A. B. Morgan 



"Where do birds spend the night?"' is a question I might never 

 have been able to answer even in a small degree had it not been 

 that for the past 10 years I have lived almost in the woods and have 

 occupied a sleeping porch from early spring to late fall. I have also 

 discovered that an automobile driven at night reveals the sleeping 

 quarters of many birds by startling them from their perch. 



Several times while passing a rocky height that might well be in 

 the Alps themselves, thrushes have flashed across our path, and on the 

 same road we have surprised a screech owl in his hunting. A pair of 

 veeries have nested for several years just across the road, directly in 

 front of the house, and evidently the male has its particular tree down 

 the lane where it perches, since invariably when the car passes it at 

 night, out he flies. That other birds select and keep the same general 

 perch for the season I must infer from my observations, though to 

 what extent, it is unwise to speculate. A cuckoo has occupied an elm 

 tree near the house successively and often calls softly during the pass- 

 ing hours of the night. This characteristic of the bird is indicated by 

 the following item: "The city man had gone camping with his six- 



