BY C. WILL BEEBE
With photographs from nature by the author.
The slate-colored Junco or Snowbird breeds very abundantly in the fields of Digby county, Nova Scotia, and its neat nests are often so artistically placed that they are a continual temptation to the naturalist photographer. One nest, in particular, with four eggs, was especially beautiful, seen through the ground glass of the camera, the contrast between the eggs and the waxy green leaves and scarlet fruit of the bunch-berries near it making one long for color photography. This nest was in a field, five feet from a road, and partly protected by a tiny bank of turf.
NEST AND EGGS OF JUNCO
Five days after the photograph was taken the eggs hatched, and four balls of long, jet-black fuzz appeared. Daily twelve-hour meals of green measuring-worms, provided by the parents, wrought marvels in the appearance of the young birds, and in a surprisingly short time a second suit of streaked black and brown was assumed. In this, perhaps, the facsimile of their ancestors' plumage, they left the nest, and apparently lost individuality among the large flocks of their species.
Another abundant summer bird of this part of Nova Scotia is the Night-hawk, the name being almost a misnomer, as they are visible in numbers, flying all day. But all do not depart from their usual custom of sleeping during the day, as is shown in the accompanying photograph, taken about 11 A. M. one August day, 1898. While walking along a railroad track, I noticed this bird resting in a fallen trunk about four feet from the track. I focused my camera and made the exposure without disturbing the bird in the least. A train had passed not long before, so it could hardly have been asleep more than an hour. The characteristic longitudinal position assumed by this bird in perching is well shown, and its protective coloring makes it appear a mere excrescence on the bark.