nest had been destroyed on June 3 when the remains of 9 eggs were found. 

 The cause of this loss is uncertain, but tooth marks left on one shell corre- 

 sponded in width to that between the canine teeth of the raccoon, Procyon 

 lotor Linnaeus, or a small dog. According to Stoddard (1931:188), dogs 

 usually eat the entire egg, whereas these eggs had but one side removed in a 

 manner characteristic of the raccoon (see Reardon, 1951). 



No. 11. Discovered on May 29, 11 eggs; found destroyed on June 3, canine 

 marks and a tuft of hair on one egg indicated that a spotted skunk, Spilogale 

 interrupta Rafinesque, had destroyed the nest (see Plate 4, Figure c). 



No. 12. Discovered on May 29, 9 eggs; all gone on June 3 without evi- 

 dence of cause. 



No. 13. Discovered on May 28, 2 eggs; found destroyed on June 3, ends of 

 eggs removed and fragments carried oflF 15 feet from the nest in a manner 

 characteristic of the cotton rat, Sigmodon hispidus Say and Ord, as described 

 in Stoddard (1931:140). 



No. 14. Discovered on June 16, 9 eggs. On the night of June 29-30 there 

 was a rain of 2.12 inches at lola (2.33 inches at Gamett). At 11 A. M. on 

 June 30 I visited this nest and found no evidence of the hen; all but two eggs 

 were pipped, at least part of the chicks were alive in the shell. At 4 P. M. 

 the hen was at the nest, and one egg was hatching. On July 2, the shells 

 of two hatched eggs were found here; the other seven had failed to hatch. 

 This nest was situated on the steep side of a natural drainageway. The hen 

 probably was driven from the nest at hatching time by water. 



No. 15. Discovered on June 19, 9 eggs; on June 30 all were hatched; the 

 shells were stained and the egg and embryonic membranes were separated from 

 the shells which suggested that they had hatched several days prior to June 30. 



No. 16. Discovered on June 14 while I was searching the same area covered 

 on May 25, 9 eggs; never located again; thought to have been destroyed. 



Hamerstrom (1939:114) reported that in Wisconsin 50 per cent 

 of the nests were successful. In Illinois, Yeatter (1943:392) found 

 49 per cent of the nests to be successful. Seven of 16 nests found 

 in this study were successful. Five of these seven were among the 

 first eight when arranged according to the date when the first egg 

 was laid. The remaining three of the first eight are those de- 

 stroyed by the tractor, all of which were in an advanced stage of 

 incubation, and at least part of which might be presumed to have 

 been successful if undisturbed by me. While it is true that all 

 other unsuccessful nests had incomplete clutches or were in early 

 stages of incubation when found, none of these nests was known 

 to have been abandoned before destruction. The successful nests 

 were found on the first or second, eighth, thirteenth, fourteenth and 

 seventeenth days of incubation, as judged by the dates of hatching. 



Size of Clutch 



The size of full clutches reported by other observers ranges from 

 a minimum of five (see Hamerstrom, 1939:111) to a maximum of 

 25 (see Schwartz, 1945:65). The largest clutches were thought 



[27] 



