Page:Bird-lore Vol 06.djvu/155

 120 Bird - Lore

nest. For ten minutes I looked over the ground foot by foot. I could not believe my own eyes that the bird was not there, yet I could not see her. At last I was about to return to the mark and step the ground over again, when a reﬂection from the bird’s eye showed her to me just one foot from where I was standing.

The camera was set up and several exposures were made. One of the resulting photographs was reproduced as a frontispiece to BlRD-LORE. (Vol. 111, December. Igor.) tographed.

This nest. like the one found in 1890,. was elliptical in shape. but the bird would go on her nest only from the east and always sat with her head to the west. The bird would return within a few feet of her nest and then dart suddenly at the head or the hand of one handling her eggs. There were no willows near the nest. and the eggs, six in number, were partly incu- bated when discovered June 2!.

In 1902 Iwas in California during the nesting season of the Ptarmi- gan, but last year a nest was found on July 5 by Mrs. Douthwaite, of La Fayette, Colo, on James' Peak, near Loch Lomond, containing seven eggs. This bird was frightened from her nest by dogs and threw a num» ber of her eggs out and down over the rocks. where they were broken and were found to be incubated almost to hatching.

This nest was also elliptical in shape and the bird always sat facing the east. A number of dead willow twigs and grass had evidently been carried together by the bird herself to make this nest. Unlike the other two I have seen with bird on nest, this bird was not so well concealed by her surroundings and, as shown in the accompanying photographs, was plainly visible.

Altogether I have seen three nests containing bird and eggs and four complete sets of eggs, besides over twenty old nests con» taining only the last year‘s egg- shells and a few feathers: and while 1 knowledge of their nesting habits, this much I claim—that they never nest in the willows but in the open, depending on their color for protection ; that they remain sitting till nearly or actually touched hr the human foot or hand : that they place their nest differently in diﬁer- ent seasons owing to the amount of snow, and that different individuals \arv in the season of nesting, as I have seen young birds full-grown and on

The eggs, six in number, were also pho-

.\ l-rutmmx wth

must Confess but little.