the first seen this year. 
April 4th. — The western meadow -larks 
have come, and pour forth their melo- 
dious notes as they sit on the fences a- 
bout Ula. Th^ir eastern relative has no 
such beautiful song. The red-winged 
blackbirds are now quite common. 
April 7th. — We examined the stomachs 
of some birds, to see what they had eat- 
en. A wax-wing had dined on beetles of 
the family Geodephaga, a bluebird had 
partaken of ants and a beetle called 
Graphops varians, and ip the stomach of 
a robin were seeds and beetles (Geode- 
phaga.) But a blue-jay was the thief, he 
had stolen the wheat thrown out to feed 
the chickens. 
April 9th. — The red-shafted flickers 
are now common. 
May 6th. — A mourning dove was seen, 
the first of the year. 
May 11th. — Mourning doves (Zenaidu- 
ra macroura) are now becoming common. 
Brewers blackbird (Scolecophagus cy ano- 
cephalus) has become quite common. 
May 14th. — The first swallow (Cheli- 
don erythrogaster) seen. 
May 15th. — Saw eggs of robin and blue 
jay. 
May 22nd. — The first humming bird of 
the year has come. 
May 24th. — Humming birds are now 
quite common. 
May 31st. — Found a nest of Brewer’s 
blackbird, with eggs. This was on the 
ground, although N. S. Goss (“Birds of 
Kansas”) gives this birds as nesting “in 
the forks of trees and bushes, from three 
to thirty feet from the ground.” But 
Mr. C. F. Morrison found them nesting 
on the ground in La Plata county. 
June 4th. — At last the night-hawks 
have appeared. 
MEETING. 
The Custer county division of the C. 
B. A. held a meeting at the Westcliffe 
School House on Tuesday, January 29th, 
at 8 p. m. Including non-members, the 
attendance was 26. Mr. S. Wright took 
the chair. Mr. T. Charlton, who was to 
have spoken on chemistry, was prevent- 
ed from doing so by illness. The Secre- 
tary, acting in his place, showed the tests 
for salts of iron, copper and lead, and 
demonstrated by means of the Sulphuric 
acid test that the substance imported 
in tin cans from Kansas City, and sold as 
pure lard, is not that substance, but 
some other compound. The Secretary 
then read a paper on “The Balance of Na- 
ture,” referring chiefly to insects and 
their parasites. The paper was illustra- 
ted by five large colored diagrams, rep- 
resenting (1.) Thalessa ovopositing in a 
tree stump. (2.) An Ichneumon of the 
genus Ophion. (3.) Caterpillar of Telea 
polyphemus. (4.) A beetle (Megilla ma- 
culata) with the cocoon of its- parasite. 
(5.) A spider with a parasitic larva (Poly- 
sphincta) upon it. It dealt first with the 
unfortunate results of importing animals 
to new countries, as for instance the rab- 
bit in Australia and New Zealand, with- 
out considering beforehand their habits 
and the probability of their doing dam- 
age. With regard to insects, perhaps the 
chief reason that noxious species increas- 
ed so rapidly in new^countries was that 
38 
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