224 ' 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVII 
quently in our ears, nested in old hollow oaks. It was peculiarly interesting to 
watch them here, in a site made to seem abnormal by modern usages. They 
would dart in and out through the dense foliage of the tree tops so fast it was 
hard to keep track of them ; but one nest hole in the cleft of a tall tree I dis- 
covered from a hillside above. Its owner, a handsome effervescent young father, 
went in and out of the nest hole singing as jubilantly as a Bobolink, standing 
on the edge and singing down into the hole before going in, and on coming up 
stopping half way out with only glossy head and breast visible, to burst into his 
wild jubilant song. 
While a good many species nested in the timber, there were comparatively 
few that nested in the brush patches. In the fringe of bushes between the lake 
shore and the woods a pair of Brown Thrashers — whom I had seen carrying food 
June 16 — ten days later held me up and smacked at me till I discovered a stubby- 
tailed youngster on a branch overhead. Catbirds also probably nested in this 
fringe of bushes. On its shore edge, under one of the last silver-leaf bushes, 
on June 18, I flushed a Spotted Sandpiper from her nest with its four ovate 
eggs all pointing in. The sweet Sandpiper notes, per’r’r iveet, per'r’r weet, 
were often heard along the shore, and a loud musical piping song was heard 
from one circling in over the beach, answered by the ordinary Sandpiper notes 
down the shore. A pair of Killdeer was also seen and heard along the beach, 
but they nested apparently in the corn field near the farm house. 
In the silver-leaf patches and wild plum thickets back from the shore three 
birds were especially abundant, the Bronzed Grackle, the Yellow Warbler, and 
the Clay-colored Sparrow. 
The dense thickets of wild plum and spiny thornapple make good shelter 
for the Grackle colonies wi th their big nests and large nestlings. AVhen the old 
males are interviewing visitors to their noisy colonies the visitors have an oppor- 
tunity to examine the bronze of their plumage. To eyes familiar mainly with 
museum skins an old male standing on top of the thicket in strong sunlight is 
almost startling. The bronze of his back while not as yellow as a newly polished 
brass knocker has the rich glowing quality of burnished bronze — as if each 
feather saturated in sunlight reflected it from every barbule. The contrast 
the bronzy back presents to the iridescent green head is also striking. When 
the young of a Stump Lake colony were being fed, their parents were con- 
stantly seen hunting along the lake shore and flying off with full bills, and by 
the firsl week in July the woods between the thicket and the lake were full of 
Quiscaltis fanr’lies all talking at once. 
Besides the thickets of wild rose, wild plum, and thornapple there were 
acres of that beautiful bush, the silver-leaf or silver-berry. Sagebrush the silver- 
leaf is called locally, though the sage of the region is the low Artemisia frigida, 
and the silver-leaf is Eleagnus argentia. Eleagnus grows head high and over, 
and its stiff branches with their lovely silver leafage afford safe cover for the 
gray nests of the Yellow Warbler, the Warbler of the region. Not every bush 
in the prairie country has its Yellow Warbler, but the flash of yellow and the 
familiar song are such common experiences that you come to realize the truth 
of the statement that aestiva is filling a gap left by nature and filling it abund- 
antly. 
Another bird whose voice is commonly heard in the silver-leaf thickets is the 
Spizella of the prairies, the little Clay-colored Sparrow whose crown when raised 
looks striped, from its median line, superciliary and line through the eye, and 
whose white malar streak adds a touch of softness to its plumage. Its call is 
