Random Notes on Natural History. 



173 



October 22, 1899, a female was observed ovipositing in a crev- 

 ice in the bark of an ash tree near my house. October 13, 

 1899, Sandalus were abundant on ash trees. A fresh female 

 examined was found to contain an immense number of very 

 small oblong white, translucent eggs. Several spent females, 

 that were picked up from the ground in a dying condition, 

 had but few eggs left in them. The females do not fly much, 

 but run up and down the trunks of the trees. The males fly 

 actively about and pair with the females. The female depos- 

 its her eggs in crevices. I see no evidence that the larvae 

 feed on any part of the tree except the roots. They seem to 

 follow the roots out some distance from the trunk of the tree 

 and pupate. 



E. PISCES. 



Lepidosteus osseus (Linne). A female of the long-nosed gar, 

 from Lake Erie, of six pounds weight, contained an egg mass 

 which weighed fourteen ounces, and, by count, numbered 

 34,160 eggs. 



F. AVES. 



Urinator lumme (Gunnerus). Mr. J. H. Meier, on January 

 11, 1895, shot a red-throated loon (male) near the Little Miami 

 River. His attention was attracted to the bird by hearing it 

 scream. Its note, he says, "was like the voice of a woman in 

 distress." The specimen is in the Cuvier Club museum. 



Anhinga anhinga (Linne). Two females of the anhinga, 

 confined in the Zoological Garden in an aviary together with 

 woodducks, were very vicious, picking out the ducks' eyes 

 with their sharp beaks. 



Phcenicopterus ruber (Linne). A flamingo at the Zoological 

 Garden refused to eat the food natural to such birds, but sub- 

 sisted entirely on boiled rice. 



Botaurus lentiginosus (Montag). On November 15, 1899, a 

 male American bittern was received from Franklin, Ohio. 

 Its stomach was found to contain one entire short-tailed shrew 

 Blarina brevicauda (Say), and also the hair of another — a 

 very unusual food for this species. 



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