Pee eAM UB ONE BULCETIN 65 
belly. Marsh Hawks were seen March 15, July 25, August 20, Septem- 
ber 16, and October 6, a Pigeon Hawk September 16, while Sparrow 
Hawks were noted April 1, 23, 25, May 10, August 2, 20 and December 14. 
A Virginia Rail was captured by a boy in a marsh near North Avenue, 
April 24. In captivity it ate ravenously and never fought the cage. Exam- 
ination showed that both eyes were blinded—they were opaque, covered 
with a growth like a cataract. We have had it as a pet ever since. At first 
it found its way round its large cage by tapping with its beak, like a blind 
man with his cane, but it was not long before its movements were as free 
as if it could see. Its favorite articles of diet are meal-worms, chopped beef, 
bread-crumbs, grapes, apples, and dried flies. 
Coots in the Museum have given us an interesting exhibit of individual 
variation. “Iwo, brought during the fall, refused all food; nothing tempted 
them. They were uneasy in captivity, and were released after just a few 
days each. The third, brought in early December, its wing pinioned by a 
shot so it could never fly again, accommodated itself immediately to the 
cage. Nothing bothered it. It ate voraciously of corn, rice, lettuce, 
chopped beef, grapes, and apples and spent half its time bathing. 
Woodcocks are not uncommon. Several were brought to the Museum. 
One had flown into a plate-glass window in a business section of Oak Park; 
it was picked up, where it lay stunned, and brought to us. It recovered 
rather promptly and after a week-end was released in Thatcher Woods. 
During the two days it ate quantities of earthworms. It much preferred 
to have the worms invisible, sunk out of sight in a pan of wet mud. It 
would walk right up into the pan and probe with its long beak. We 
found it impossible to get enough worms to satisfy it, and its muscles were 
perceptibly thinner when we let it go. 
Screech Owls have furnished some interesting incidents. One took up 
his station in an elm in front of the Museum, and was there every day from 
May 4 to 20. It made a good, clear exhibit to show the many bird students 
haunting the Museum those days. It may be the identical Screech Owl 
from whom we took a Robin December 12. Five of us, crossing the 
Forest Preserves after dark, flushed a bird in the snow; it alighted just 
above us, his round body and upstanding “horns”’ silhouetted against the 
sky. He dropped a Robin, which fell at our feet. It was dead but still 
warm. A few feathers had been pulled from its neck, but the skin was 
unbroken save for talon-holes through the back. 
A Saw-whet Owl found good hunting behind the big Public Service 
Company gas tank near Maywood. A ridiculously tame, innocent-looking 
little ball of fluff, he sat, round-eyed, on a loop of grapevine in a thicket— 
solemn as a deacon, while unobserved. But while no one was looking it 
hunted efficiently. One observer, John Danisch, saw it eating a meadow 
mouse; it could hardly be criticized for that—but from directly beneath its 
perch Mr. Danisch retrieved a male ‘owhee, dead, and with both wings 
pulled out. Later in the day, I found just behind its perch another Towhee, 
