NATURAL HISTORY. 



53 



screaming over my head, and, as I was 

 out for hawk blood, I shot it. It proved 

 a female marsh hawk, and I soon found 

 its nest, containing 4 eggs. Knowing the 

 good reputation of this hawk I was sorry 



1 had killed it. I carried the bird home, 

 opened its stomach, and found the easily 

 identified remains of 2 redwinged black- 

 birds, but not a trace of a mouse. 



The mottled owl is praised because it 

 destroys beetles and moths. It destroys 

 more than that. When a boy I learned 

 how to get these owls out of hollow ap- 

 ple trees. Since then I have always in- 

 vestigated promising owl holes, and have 

 found many of the birds at home with 

 their young. In the winter I -have seen 

 at the bottom of owl holes the wing and 

 tail feathers of robins, sparrows, wood- 

 peckers, &c. Last winter I found in a 

 hole a pine grosbeak with his head eaten 

 off. I have discovered nests containing 

 young and visited them daily, finding the 

 remains of new birds each morning. As 

 this destruction was accomplished in 

 breeding season who can compute the re- 

 sulting injury to insectivorous bird life? 



I raise many chickens, and for the last 



2 years have lost by hawks 40 to 60 

 each year. I keep the shot gun right by 

 the door and for 6 weeks in the spring I 

 have to jump from my work several times 

 a day and run for the gun to protect my 

 fowls. The hawks are often too quick for 

 me, and when I see my poultry profit 

 sailing off in the air, I often feel like 

 getting up another set of reports to off- 

 set Mr. Fisher's. 



I know positively from personal knowl- 

 edge that the mottled owl, the Cooper's 

 and the sharpshinned hawks are great de- 

 stroyers of bird life. The 2 latter are, be- 

 sides, an unmitigated nuisance to poultry 

 raisers. 



Rodney S. Torrey, 

 Wenham Depot, Mass. 



SWIFTS IN A BARN. 



For some 10 years a pair of chimney 

 swifts, Chaetura pelagica, have nested in one 

 of our barns. The nest is placed on the 

 inside of the barn, glued to the vertical 

 surface of the smooth boards; not in a 

 chimney, although many other swifts nest 

 in disused chimneys near, but attached 

 to the side of the barn about 40 feet from 

 the ground. The nest does not differ from 

 the typical ones of this species, being 

 bracket shaped, and composed of small 

 twigs cemented together with saliva. The 

 birds have free access to this nest by a 

 window just below it. 



A strange fact, aside from the unique 

 position of the nest, is, that although this 

 pair of birds have reared 3 to 5 young 



birds here every summer for so- many 

 years, none of these young birds ever 

 comes back to nest in the barn; this one 

 pair of birds being the only ones that have 

 ever nested there. 



It has been my good fortune to collect 

 the nest that the same pair of birds, or 

 at least the same pair to all appearances, 

 used some 8 years, and to compare it 

 with the one they built when the old one 

 was removed. The old nest was about 

 twice as large as the new one, being very 

 broad and deep. It was composed of 

 larger twigs, and these were half covered 

 with hardened deposits of saliva. This 

 nest was evidently improved each year. 

 Compared with this the nest that was built 

 last year was only a shell, being much 

 smaller, and of so loose a texture that the 

 eggs might almost roll out. 



I am told that at one time the swifts 

 nested in hollow trees, and then changed 

 to the chimneys where we now find them. 

 Is not the case I have just mentioned a 

 good example of the readiness with which 

 a bird will take advantage of a change in 

 its environment? Surely, it would be 

 much more clean, pleasant and convenient 

 for all the swifts to nest in barns than in 

 sooty chimneys. 



Floyd D. Palmer, Carlville, N. Y. 



FROG SWALLOWS A TURTLE. 



Col. Fred Mather once wrote that he 

 had taken from the stomachs of black 

 bass, and even of brook trout, turtles the 

 size of a quarter of a dollar, and he re- 

 marks, " The shell is, at that age, mere car- 

 tilage and can be digested." 



A few years ago my little boy and I 

 were strolling around a small artificial 

 pond near Washington, D. C, when a 

 frog poked his head out of water near 

 the bank. I had my rifle with me, and 

 to please the boy shot the green gentle- 

 man's head off. My boy caught the wal- 

 loping remains and bore them out on 

 dry land to be carried home for the tooth- 

 some legs. Sauntering on behind me he 

 presently called me to stop and see what 

 this was in the frog's neck. Pausing to 

 examine I found the edge of a small 

 turtle's shell projecting from the headless ■ 

 body. Catching it between finger and 

 thumb I pulled out a baby turtle as big 

 as a silver half dollar. It had been swal- 

 lowed apparently a day, at least, for di- 

 gestion had made considerable progress. 



That shell was not cartilage. On the 

 contrary, it was quite hard and the edge 

 seemed sharp. How the frog had man- 

 aged to swallow so large a victim was a 

 problem. Besides, it was news to me that 

 frogs lived on such food. It would have 

 seemed far less strange had the turtle at- * 

 tacked and killed the frog, ~" v 



