Found one set of eight slightly incubated eggs, immaculate, 58 × 40, 57 × 43, 54 × 43, 54 × 43, 54 × 43, 53 × 42, 55 × 43, 53 × 49. Nest on a low pine, in a clearing that had grown up to underbrush, three or four feet from the ground. It was pendant (contrary to Dr. Coues’ Bds. of Colo. Val.) from the under side of some small branches that inclined downward and about four inches from the stem. It is much the shape of a “R. R. lunch station” coffee cup, but longer and flattened at the bottom, mainly of green moss interwoven with the fibrous outer covering of plants. This fibre also holding it to the twigs. A very few fine straws are woven into the lower end. The cavity is quite deep for its width, lined with soft shreds of burlaps and re-lined with soft feathers. Altogether it is a very soft concern. Outer height 6 inches, diameter 4 inches, inner depth 2½ inches, diameter 1¾ inches. Am sure of its identity, as I stood some time with my face close to the parent on the nest. While I was packing the nest and eggs the parents were hopping about, uttering their loud cherp, cherp, cherp, cherup, that seemed to be of too much force and volume for so tiny a creature. Right here let me make a correction to my mass of mistakes in the February O. and O. I am not positive of ever seeing but one pair of Yellow-crowned Kinglets anywhere near here. Last year a pair of them alighted near me while at Murphy, and I took it for granted that they were all Yellow-crowns. This season I have paid considerable attention to the Kinglets, but have failed to see anything but Ruby-crowns, which are quite numerous in this locality.
August 1, watched a pair of Kinglets carrying food to their young, and soon discovered their nest in the top of a slender pine about forty feet up. Climbed up, but the top was so small it would not bear my weight. So I waited till the young had flown and then felled the tree. This nest, also, is pensile but not exactly like the other. It is suspended from small twigs and connected to the stem by small fibers caught to the rough bark. It is of moss, fine grass, plant fiber, very small rootlets, and a few feathers loosely woven and lined with soft feathers. Outer diameter 3½ inches, height 4½ inches, inner diameter 2 inches, depth 2½ inches.
It is amusing to note their antics when a Jay happens in the vicinity of their nest. I have often been attracted some distance by their constant chirp, and find them fluttering around some sedate looking Jay, bent on obtaining its breakfast, and at short intervals pouncing down on its back as if to impress upon him their importance. In a corner of the timber near my shanty I have witnessed these proceedings several times, and it is a strong indication that their nest is not far away.—D. D. Stone, Hancock, Colorado.
Short-eared Owl.
This little owl, so far as my observation has extended, seems peculiar to the coast, where among the reeds and thick marshes of the shores and neighboring islands it finds a covert from the noisy world. Having found such a place they, unlike all other New England owls, build in colonies. A locality not far from here has been from my earliest recollection a breeding place for these owls. The situation is most desirable, being a meadow or flat level with the coast, over which the tide completely flows, but leaves it entirely dry when it recedes. This meadow is covered with a coarse grass and surrounded by tall brakes and reeds. In these latter they gather together the remains of last year’s frost-bitten reeds and place them in a promiscuous heap on a tussock. This is afterward hollowed out and the set of eggs is then laid. Six is the largest number I ever found, with the exception of one nest, in which I found ten; but these were laid by two females who sat together on the same nest in perfect harmony. Incubation was difficult to determine, but I cannot make it out to be more than twenty-one days. If any of your readers would be kind enough to give me the exact time it would be gratefully received. No owl is more interesting to watch. Take some dark, cloudy day in May or June, repair to their haunts and they will be found lightly skimming over the surface of the ground seeking for food left by the receding tide, or again diligently searching the immediate upland for any unwary mouse. Or watch them again in the deepening twilight, as silently, without a single note, they flit past, seeming but a passing thought or fanciful vision, until you hear from the shore the shrill cry of a Tern or Sandpiper in his talons; then you awaken to the fact that it is a rapacious bird acting well its part in nature’s great drama, “The Survival of the Fittest.”—F. H. Carpenter, Rehobeth, Mass.
Clarke’s Crow in Southeastern Dakota.
A few days ago a farmer called my attention to two, to him, strange birds eating corn in his hog pasture. I borrowed his gun loaded with buckshot, and to my surprise found the victim to be a Clarke’s crow. Now the question is, what did these two strangers want here in a country so unsuited to their wants and habits? Their nearest habitat from here is 400 miles off in a bee line in the Black Hills, where they are not uncommon.—G. Ayersborg, Vermillion, Dakota.
August O. and O.
J. N. Clark is a little incredulous about the nesting of the Greater Yellow Legs in New Jersey, saying they are abundant during migration at Saybrook, Conn. The Pigeon Hawk’s nest in Delaware and the cross-bills on Long Island are equally surprising to him.