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little bird key. ‘‘Beauty,” it has been said, “is in the eyes of the be- 
holder.” That being true, it is as good as receiving a top-efficiency rating 
to hear one of the boys or the girls whom I know best say wonderingly, 
“That one? Robin? It’s perrdy!” 
Chicago, Illinois 
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American Egrets Spreading Northward 
THAT GROWING public interest in birdlife is being recognized is shown by 
the fact that two rather large heron rookeries have recently been described 
in special articles appearing in papers of wide circulation. One located 
along the Mississippi River near Clarksville, Missouri, contains between 
800 and 1000 nests of black-crowned night herons, great blue herons and 
American egrets. Some 200 of the nests are those of egrets, which have 
used this location for three years. In one large tree as many as 28 nests 
were counted, all three species frequently nesting in the same tree. 
The second rookery is the subject of an illustrated article appearing 
in the Des Moines Sunday Register, and is of particular interest because 
it describes the only known nesting of American egrets in Iowa. The site 
of this rookery is some three miles up the Mississippi River from Sabula, 
Iowa, and it was occupied for the first time last year. In an area of about 
two acres some 250 egret nests were built this year and the colony, includ- 
ing the young of the year, numbers some 750 birds. Dams constructed to 
insure a nine-foot channel in the river have flooded some lands, and the 
water covers some of the ground during normal stages so that it can be 
reached only by boat. This makes ideal feeding conditions for the egrets 
and undoubtedly accounts for this spreading of their breeding range. As 
Sabula is almost directly west from Chicago it may not be too much to 
hope that egrets will be found in this territory before long. 
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Lightning Hits Bird House 
TRAGEDY OVERTOOK one of the farm bird homes recently. Lightning struck 
a purple martin colony house, destroying the house itself and splitting the 
pole which supported it. The morning after the storm the farm residents 
found wood splinters more than 75 feet from the martin house. The birds’ 
“apartment building’”’ was on the ground in pieces, and the frightened birds 
were circling excitedly over the area. It is probable that some of the 
martins were killed, altho the men could find none of the bodies on 
the ground. 
Two days after the accident occurred several of the mystified martins 
still were circling over their fallen home. After long periods of this 
excited flying, they would fly over to another martin house about 60 feet 
away. The accident caused the martins from the ruined house to use the 
adjacent home as headquarters for their feeding flights—‘“Day by Day 
on the Farm,” in Chicago Tribune. 
