Mar., 1902. I 
THE CONDOR 
31 
up dripping with the spray. He re- 
peated this five times in about as many 
minutes stopping between to shake and 
preen his feathers. 
A bird who does everything in such 
a large way can hardly be expected to 
bring his mind to commonplace detail, 
and the nest of the scissor-tail certainly 
looks as if made on a generalization. It 
is usually big, with long streamers dang- 
ling from it in the breeze and looks as 
if the materials had been thrown at it — 
in passing. One nest we found at Rio 
Coloral, however, was a marked excep- 
tion to all the others we saw, being 
small, compact, and neatly built. It 
had a large admixture of wool, left by 
the goats on the barbed wire fences. 
Wherever you find him the scissor- 
tail is so much in evidence that, like a 
barking coyote, one is as good as a flock, 
really abound. Near Corpus Christ! we 
but in parts of the raesquite prairies of 
southern Texas the beautiful birds 
once counted thirteen in sight down the 
road. The largest number we ever 
found together, however, was in the 
San Ignatius oak mott, a grove of oaks 
half way between Corpus Christ! and 
Brownsville. In that section the low 
shin oaks of the sand prairie affords 
no good roosting places and the birds of 
various kinds congregate at night in 
the few oasis-like oak groves. The 
night we got to the San Ignatius mott 
we were too much occupied making 
camp before dark to notice much but a 
general noisy assembly of grackles and 
scissor-tails and the presence of a Pyro- 
cephalus, the red of whose breast we 
could just discern in the twilight; but 
at sundown, when Mr. Bailey shot a 
rattlesnake at the foot of a big oak in 
camp the report was followed by a roar 
and rattle in the top of the tree and a 
great flock of scissor-tails arose and dis- 
persed in the darkness. They did not 
all leave the tree, apparently, even 
then, although some of them may have 
returned to it, for when daylight came 
to my surprise a large number of them 
straggled out of the tree. How one oak 
top could hold so many birds seemed a 
mystery. Before the flycatchers dis- 
persed for the day the sky around the 
mott was alive with them careering 
around in their usual acrobatic manner 
making the air vibrate with their shrill 
screams. 
Some Experiences of 1901. 
P. 11. SII.LOWAV, I.EWISTON, MONT. 
A BRIGHT morning. May 28, saw 
me early afield in quest of eggs of 
the long billed curlew, {Niimenius 
longirostris). A dry pond on the prai- 
rie about two miles from my home ap- 
peared to be the center of operations of 
a colony of these curlews, and I started 
out in high hope of adding a number of 
sets of Nuraenius to my collection. By 
way of introduction I should say that 
my experience with Numenius in the 
preceding season had so elated me that 
I felt capable of finding any nest of this 
species which might chance to be on 
the prairie. On this particular morn- 
ing, therefore, I am armed with a capac- 
ious basket and sundry other receptacles 
(cigar-boxes), and was anticipating a 
red-letter day in my oological career; in 
fact, I was already formulating an ex- 
change notice, announcing to my needy 
ornithological friends that I was over- 
stocked with eggs of the long-billed cur- 
lew and that I would take any old thing 
in exchange for them. 
The pond mentioned was near the 
corner of four extensive pastures, so 
that I had ample field for the exercise 
of my powers as a finder of curlews’ 
nests. Approaching the pond from the 
south, according to a system I had ar- 
ranged, I was not surprised to see a 
curlew flying out to meet me, cackling 
his disapproval. Now, anyone who has 
