152 
THE CONDOR 
| Vol. VIII 
I descended into the creek bottoms among the willows, where I found my first 
magpie nests. These birds were seen about every sheep-herder’s camp, subsisting 
on carrion. 
After scanning the sides of a distant range thru my field glasses, I as- 
cended the hills in that direction. As my pony was prancing about, a curlew 
arose ten feet away, and swiftly winged her course low over the prairie, half a mile 
in absolute silence. I sprang from my saddle and found a handsome fresh set rest- 
ing with their points together in a slight cavity lined with bits of grass. In the 
meantime the parent approached from the opposite direction, uttering her distress- 
ing notes of alarm. 
These eggs are of the dark green type, shaped long and narrow, and quite 
different from other specimens of "the sicklebill" which I possess. 
An hour or two later while riding thru the sage brush, I espied a sage hen 
squatting under a bush in typical woodcock fashion, trusting by her protective 
coloration to escape attention. She permitted close inspection before leaving her 
nest, revealing nine eggs, incubation one-half. 
Five miles away several cottonwoods were growing between rocky ledges. As 
I neared the place a beautiful fawn-colored hawk sailed from a huge nest composed 
of dead limbs and buffalo chips. An easy climb — and I was looking down on 
three well-blotched eggs of the ferruginous rough-leg. 
It was getting late in the afternoon so I started for the ranch. In a deep gulch 
between two divides were several tall poplars; two contained nests. On one the 
head and tail of a Swainson hawk were clearly visible, outlined against the blue 
sky. The nest held one freshly laid egg, which I left undisturbed. 
Camp was reached in time for supper, and tho a trifle saddle-sore, I felt amply 
rewarded for my first day's work up the Yellowstone. 
Chicago , Illinois. 
The Bell Sparrow 
BY WRIGHT M. PIERCE 
T HIS little sparrow ( Amphispiza belli ) is very numerous about here, frequenting 
the brush-covered fields and low foothills. He seems to prefer the low 
brush, especially that which grows from one to three feet high, tho he is 
found, but less abundantly, in the higher sage and thicker brush. This sparrow 
is a resident about here and can be found at any time in his chosen haunts either 
on a rainy day in January or on a hot sultry one in July. 
I have found many nests of this bird and do not consider them difficult to lo- 
cate. The method I use is to walk along in the low brush until the bird is startled 
from the nest, or to simply look in bunches of low brush near which I have lo- 
cated a pair of the birds. In this way I have found as many as half a dozen 
different nests in an afternoon. 
The breeding season commences in early April and continues certainly as late 
as June. It is at its height during the last week of April and in early May. My 
earliest set was taken on April 6, near Claremont, and contained four eggs, 
slightly incubated. On May 18, also near Claremont, I found a set of four, incu- 
bation advanced. 
The nest is generally placed about a foot up in some small bush, usually being 
