UH eas UCD Urb. OuNe eb Ul eet LN 13 
His letter continues: “There are 100 or more red-headed woodpeckers 
and a half-dozen pileated woodpeckers wintering north of Beardstown... . 
There is a flock of 50 doves wintering at Loraine on the Poling farm. They 
eat at the cattle feeding troughs daily. ... There has been a great drift 
of cardinals from the river bottoms. I have banded 52 cardinals since 
January 1. All have been captured in my brother’s yard.... Yesterday 
(February 25) I saw two small flocks of bluebirds, six birds and four. The 
next south wind will bring them in by the hundreds. All boxes have been 
serviced and there are 1,000 units ready for them. Forty per cent of the 
boxes had white-footed mice nesting in them. The scourge of mice accounts 
for the drift of hundreds of short-eared owls which have returned to the 
prairies this year. It has been five years since we had a similar invasion of 
short-ears. Last week I counted 28 short-eared owls on the aviation field— 
all visible, flying or sitting on the ground. It was little short of marvelous.” 
Mr. Musselman’s report of many bald eagles at Keokuk and Quincy is 
supported by a short item which appeared in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, paper 
early in February. It read as follows: “Unusual concentrations of bald 
eagles, the bird of the national emblem, are reported at various locations 
along the Mississippi river. The birds, feeding on fish, are found below 
the nine-foot channel dams where the water remains open all winter. More 
than 30 of the great birds have been observed at Burlington. Large num- 
bers of fish ducks in that area are regularly robbed of their catch by the 
eagles, which are less skillful as fishermen. Except for their (fish) taking 
ways, the eagles do not seem to harm the ducks.” 
ft pi ‘e 
The Wood Thrush 
When lillies by the river fill with sun, 
And banks with clematis are overrun; 
When winds are weighed with fern-sweet from the hill, 
And hawks wheel in the noontide hot and still; 
When thistle-tops are silvered every one, 
And fly-lamps flicker ere the day is done, 
Nature bethinks her how to crown these things,— 
At twilight she decides: the wood trush sings. 
—JOHN VANCE CHENEY 
Af A f 
IF OUR POWERS of observation were quick and sure enough, no doubt we 
should see through most of the tricks of the sleight-of-hand man. * * * 
In the field of natural history, things escape us because the actors are small 
and the stage is very large and more or less veiled and obstructed. The 
movement is quick across a background that tends to conceal rather than 
expose it.—John Burroughs. 
