372 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 3, 1910. 
the passenger pigeon never laid but one egg to 
a clutch and return his $5. He would have been 
$S in pocket; I would have saved myself twice 
that amount and a hard journey, but possibly 
neither of us would have been quite as well 
satisfied. 
Only yesterday I hunted down another case 
that looked most encouraging, near Albany, N. 
Y. My informant was a sportsman physician of 
prominence. He was sure he knew a passenger 
pigeon when he saw one. He had a few weeks 
before expressed a deserted nest to me which 
he claimed to be that of a passenger pigeon, and 
which looked good—apparently large for mourn¬ 
ing dove and built of coarse twigs and rootlets. 
The location of this nest was described as in 
brush overhanging a brook about four feet above 
the water. The doctor had not known of the 
rewards until the young birds had flown. He 
also described another nest in a white oak nearby 
which was fully twenty feet from the ground. 
He gave the impression that these nests were 
in heavy timber along a swampy brook. I 
found the brook fringed with a few alders and 
other brush and with a few scattering trees along 
its course, with clean open pasture land on one 
side and grain fields on the other—typical mourn¬ 
ing dove habitat. The nest in the oak was about 
ten feet from the ground, and a mourning dove 
was sitting on two recently hatched squabs. We 
approached within six feet and drew the branch 
down, so that we could almost reach the nest be¬ 
fore the old bird left it. There was the small 
bird, scarcely more than half the size of the 
passenger pigeon, and, as plain as day, the black 
spot under the ear. It did seem, as I went away, 
that a little common sense and intelligence might 
have saved me an expensive journey and a day 
of very precious time. 
Despite all discouragements and disappoint¬ 
ments, we may feel that the season’s work has 
not been in vain. The country has been awak¬ 
ened to the problem and educated in a way that 
ought to insure the location of nesting colonies 
of the pigeons next year, if any still exist. I had 
hoped to close the investigation this season either 
by the discovery of the birds or by failure decisive 
enough to lay the subject finally to rest. I shall 
ask all the men who have offered awards to con¬ 
tinue them for next season, and we will hope 
that some intelligent person may locate a pair 
or colony of the pigeons next spring. 
The above has not dealt with the encouraging 
and favorable reports, many of them from reli¬ 
able men, of pigeons seen during the season. I 
shall try to have these all mapped and tabulated 
by Jan. 1. when all the reports for the year may 
be in. While we have not succeeded in locating 
any undisturbed nests, I do think it quite prob¬ 
able that we have found the pigeons in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, New York and Ontario, and it is this fact 
that warrants continuing the search for nesting 
birds another year. 
Not the least valuable result of this first sea¬ 
son's work is the practical demonstration for t'he 
whole country that no mistakes will be made in 
the identification of the species, and that abso¬ 
lutely nothing but the location of nesting passen¬ 
ger pigeons will secure any of the awards. Many 
thousands of the colored plates of pigeon and 
mourning dove—both Mr. Reed’s leaflet and the 
Audubon Society plates—have been distributed, 
and literally millions of notices have appeared in 
the newspapers. The plan has been proved to 
work to perfection. The only hitch has been in 
tlie case of men—or women—-who have more 
money than sense and rather enjoy losing $5 on 
an interesting bluff. 
Theodore Roosevelt has expressed his interest 
in the work, and his desire to join the confirming 
party, if certain that the nesting pigeons have 
been discovered. C. F. Hodge. 
A Holdup that was Futile. 
Highway robbery, practiced by one bird upon 
another, is not very unusual. Many of us have 
seen one wild bird snatch from another some 
bit of food that he has secured, and a procession 
of chickens in pursuit of one of their number 
that has obtained a morsel too large to be swal¬ 
lowed at once, is a common sight wherever 
chickens are kept. A famous and very impres¬ 
sive example of this robbery takes place when 
the bald eagle chases the fish hawk that has cap¬ 
tured a prey, and forcing it to drop the fish, ap¬ 
propriates it to its own uses. Gulls of various 
species are also great robbers, and in fact many 
of them live by this trade. 
In the Wilson Bulletin, L. S. Kohler describes 
an unusual battle over food in which a pair of 
red-headed woodpeckers and four blue jays were 
quarreling and fighting over a large fragment of 
decayed suet. He says: “The red-heads were in 
possession of the morsel and the jays were do¬ 
ing their best to get it away from them. The 
jays repeatedly attacked and were repulsed as 
often by the woodpeckers, the latter easily dis¬ 
persing the assaulters by attempting to pierce the 
bodies of the jays with their sharp bills. The 
jays’ principal method of attack was to singly 
pounce down near the red-heads on the trunk 
of the tree on which the woodpeckers had es¬ 
tablished themselves and utter shrill cries and try 
to snatch the suet, but on finding that single at¬ 
tempts were of no avail, rallied their forces and 
then made a general advance, each adopting a 
different method of strategy to gain the desired 
end. All their efforts were of no use, and after 
almost a half hour of fierce battle, the jays left 
the red-heads with their quarry, and flew off, ap¬ 
parently much disappointed and disgusted, to the 
other end of the grove. Bearing in mind that 
the jays are not prone to give in quickly and 
are also quite covetous, I remained sitting on a 
fallen stump just out of view of the red-heads 
and watched. Several times a single jay returned 
to the scene of battle, approaching as quietly as 
possible until assured that the woodpeckers were 
still on guard, and then with loud calls flew 
back, and joined its fellows.” 
Late Robin’s Nest. 
St. Johns, Que., Aug. 17.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Here is something that I have never 
seen before: 
A pair of robins nesting in a maple in front of 
my veranda hatched out last week, the 10th of 
August, their second brood of young. Is not this 
most remarkable in this northern section of the 
country, where these birds begin to flock for 
southern flight early in October? R. Goold. 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
Bluebirds in New Jersey. 
New York, Aug. 20 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Last March I built a little bird house, 
hoping to attract purple martins to my home in 
New Jersey. It was made from a starch box 
which had locked corners. I covered the peak 
of the roof with a sheet of tin, bored a hole 1JI5 
inches in diameter in each end, and equipped 
each end with a round perch extending about 
ijd inches below and in front of the hole. This 
gave two compartments, each about six inches 
each way. The box was painted dark green. A 
piece of drain pipe was sunk in the ground of 
the lawn forty yards from the house, and a 
pole twenty feet long, with the bird house on 
top, was set in the pipe and wired to the garden 
fence, to make it as rigid as possible. 
No martens appeared, but in April a pair of 
househunting bluebirds inspected the place. I 
was curious to learn which exposure they would 
select—northwest or southeast—and for several 
days it seemed that they were unable to make up 
their minds, for they visited both compartments 
and even carried nest material into both, but 
apparently decided finally on the sunny side, and 
built their nest there. 
About this time a neighbor put up a box in his 
garden about forty feet away from mine, but, as 
1 thought, too near his house. At any rate, my 
bluebirds did not visit his bird house, nor did 
other bluebirds inspect it, so far as we knew, al¬ 
though numbers of them were about. 
This neighbor has several small boys, and they 
amused themselves by throwing stones at my 
bluebirds until their father put a stop to it. 
Whether the boys frightened the birds away or 
not I do not know, but after a short time this 
pair disappeared. None of the other pairs which 
were about made any attempt to locate in either 
of the bird houses, and for a time the children, 
who had taken great pleasure in watching the 
birds, were greatly disappointed. 
In June the same pair of bluebirds—or another 
pair—visited my bird house and built a nest in 
the sunny side without wasting time as to a 
choice. They have been about constantly since 
then, and although shy, seem to know that they 
will not be harmed, and permit us to pass under 
their home without being alarmed. 
In mid-August, after a period of worm-carry¬ 
ing, the pair appeared with three fledglings, and 
for a day held a reception in the trees and on 
the fences nearby, all the other bluebirds in the 
neighborhood taking part in the ceremony, de¬ 
spite the presence in the garden of a neighbor’s 
prowling cat. 
Do bluebirds habitually select for their nests a 
southerly exposure? Summer storms come up 
from the northwest or southwest, and I placed 
the box as I did to ascertain which side would 
be chosen. Did this fact influence their choice?' 
Robins have patrolled the lawn constantly all 
summer and frequently, in sprinkling the grass, 
the hose has been turned on them gently. They 
seem to enjoy the spray. A large green glass 
tray is kept on the lawn, filled with water for 
the birds, and in the early morning this is visited 
by robins, bluebirds and English sparrows in 
numbers. The sparrows have not interfered 
with the bluebirds, and have not attempted to 
occupy the bird house; in fact, while they are 
loafers, they do not seem to do much harm. 
Bergen. 
