Interesting Notes.
The article in September O. and O. about Flying Squirrels reminded me of my experience with a tame Gray Squirrel that I had last year. I had a number of stuffed birds standing on the mantel in my room, unprotected. The Sciurus had the run of the room, and one day took it into his head to gnaw off the bills of every bird he could find. He must have eaten them, for I could find no trace of them anywhere, and I was afraid at first he had poisoned himself, but no evil effects followed. One day while out collecting I saw a Kingbird engaged in a fight with a Great-crested Flycatcher, and in a few moments the latter fell to the ground completely exhausted, and probably injured internally, as I could find no marks on it except a badly bunged eye. I took it home and placed it in a cage open at the top, and after a few minutes absence, returned just in time to find that Master Sciurus had climbed into the cage, killed the bird and was engaged in gnawing its bill, ruining its value as a specimen, for which I had intended it. After that I was careful to leave no birds where he could get at them.
In the summer of last year I found a nest which I have never been able to identify, as no bird was near. It was in New Castle Co., Del., and was placed in the centre of a clump of hazel bushes, growing in a swamp, so that I had to wade at least fifty yards before reaching it. It resembled a Wood Thrush’s nest, being built of mud, but was an inch deeper than any nest of that kind I ever saw. The diameter was about the same. It was placed about two feet above the water and contained four eggs, much like a runt Catbird’s egg, and of a dark blue color, with a slight greenish cast. The latter is hardly distinguishable when placed beside a Catbird’s egg. Now can any reader of O. and O. tell me what bird it belongs to? It was not a case of a Catbird laying in an old nest, for I had been through that same thicket several times before, and would have seen it. If any one can cite an instance of a Catbird building a mud nest, that may solve the question, and the slight differences in size, shape and color might be passed over as accidental. In visiting a colony of Purple Grackles I found another curious set. There is no doubt of their identity for I saw the female on the nest, which was a common P. G’s nest. There were four eggs; three of them dark brown, scratched, mottled and blotched all over with darker brown. The fourth was a light olive green, with large blotches of light brown or bronze. There were no scratches of any kind on this egg and all the colors were very light, though entirely different from a normal Grackle egg, as well as from the other three. An experienced collector to whom I showed one of the dark eggs (without telling its history) pronounced it a Nighthawk’s (Chordeiles popetue) egg. I don’t suppose this is a new species, but it certainly is a curious freak of nature.
I would like to correct a couple of the printer’s errors in my note on the Pigeon Hawk’s nest in O. and O. for September. The date, “March 2” should read “March 22,” and in the sentence “marked unevenly with five dots of reddish brown” read “fine dots.”—Charles D. Gibson, Renovo, Pennsylvania.