BY THE WAYSIDE. 
18 
Dahlberg, Dorothy Allen and May Danielson 
in Illinois; and from Margaret Williams, Don¬ 
caster, Md. 
The prizes for bird notes through March, 
April and May are assigned as follows: The 
Woodpeckers, by Mrs. Eckstorm, to Andrew 
Thronson, Hammond; Upon the Tree-tops, by 
Mrs. Miller, to Leo Egelberg, La Crosse; Birds 
Through an Opera Glass, by Mrs. Bailey, to 
William Schneider, La Crosse. Muriel Lam- 
pert, of Belvidere, Ill., who also sends a set 
of notes, receives a Bird Chart. Duncan 
Bowles, Howard Gates, Bessie Close, Mabel 
Call, Helen Ash, Josephine Benjamin', Joseph 
Kidder, Sidney Doane, Robert Sidensol, Willie 
Owen, Elsie Simon, Victor Wittenberg, Thus- 
nelda Hoffman and Frieda Starke receive a 
year’s subscription to the Wayside. 
Answers to Questions. 
Anabella Wrightman is correct in thinking 
that she saw a male cow-bird. Ruth Dittman 
perhaps found an incomplete two-story nest of 
the summer yellow warbler. Mabel Tanberg 
probably saw a white-breasted nut-hatch. Ma- 
ble Nice saw some snow-buntings in summer 
plumage. Emma Neubauer’s birds were the 
water thrush (one of the largest warblers), 
and the Baltimore oriole. The birds with nests 
that Dave Monty found were either vesper 
sparrows, which have the outer tail feathers 
white, or song sparrows, which have dark spots 
on the breast. A. C. W. 
Wisconsin Prize Letter. 
Mazomanie, Wis. 
Dear Wayside: —The Mourning Dove is a 
very nice bird. It is mostly gray. It is a 
longer bird than the robin—about 12 inches. 
The eggs are white and never more than two. 
©O 
The food of the Mourning Dove is mostly 
seeds of weeds. It makes a noise something 
like the owl, only more mournful. One season 
a pair built their nest in an elm tree near our 
house. We used to get up early to see them 
feed their young. 
The Snipe built in our field. Their nest was 
an old corn stub. If we went near it they 
would make believe that their wing or leg 
was broken to draw our attention away from 
the nest. 
We never have allowed birds to be killed on 
our place. Every year a catbird, robins, black¬ 
birds, sparrows, and many other kinds of birds 
build in our yard. 
11 years. 
Illinois Prize Letter. 
Belvidere, III., May 29, 1903. 
Dear Wayside: —By one of your pages 1 
saw that the bird this month is the Mourning 
Dove, and I thought I would write, because 
last year I saw a very queer thing. It was 
on July 18, 1902, that I discovered it. In a 
low branch of an elm tree, I saw a Mourning 
Dove’s nest. It was not by any means a com¬ 
mon nest, for it was made of sweet clover blos¬ 
soms, other common weeds with white flowers, 
and some carpet-weed. The nest was very 
flowery, so to speak; but it was very pretty. 
I am sorry to say that the young were not 
raised, for only a few days later the nest was 
gone. I forgot to sav that it rained a good 
deal while the nest was there and that kept 
the flowers fresh and green. 
Muriel Lampert. 
La Crosse. 
Dear Madam: —Last Sunday afternoon 1 
saw on a low limb of an oak tree, two Eng¬ 
lish sparrows flying about. One looked like 
the old bird and the other a young one. Finally 
the big bird caught the small one, as they 
stopped on a limb, by the tail, and pushed the 
small one off the limb. Then the big one held 
on to the little one’s tail and let it hang with 
its head down for about two minutes. Then 
he let him drop, but the little one quickly 
caught himself and flew away. 
Age 13. Fred W. Burgii. 
© 
La Crosse, Wis. 
Dear Madam: —One day in April a wood¬ 
pecker picked out a tree in our yard to make 
a nest. He began to work the next day. It 
took him about a week to finish his nest. When 
lie got all settled down, a family of bluebirds 
tried to drive out the woodpecker, but they 
could not do it. The next day, while he was 
getting his breakfast, they tried to get his nest 
again, but the woodpecker saw them coming 
and went as fast as he could fly to his nest 
and got there just in time. The woodpecker 
was waiting for his chance to get one of the 
bluebirds alone. He succeeded, but was not 
quite spry enough. The bluebirds came again 
while the woodpecker was sitting in another 
tree. One of the bluebirds went into the hole 
and the other was going in too when the wood¬ 
pecker came. After a hard battle the blue¬ 
birds succeeded in driving him away and took 
the nest and lived peacefully. 
Leonard Streck. 
Ruth M. Haseltine. 
