Page:Condor17(1).djvu/5

 4 THE CONDOR Vol. XVII which held a dead chick. The nest was a slightly concave platform composed of coarse, bully rushes and grasses, and was approximately four inches thick and nine and a half inches across. It was rather loosely attached to the reeds and rushes five inches above the water. To me the nest was of especial interest, from the fact that it was in a small marsh of less than an acre in size, and not over a hundred yards north of a ranch house, the occupants of which were wont to pass within fifty feet of the nest several times a day. Generally the birds select a marsh far distant from any one of the few houses on that uncultivated prairie. June 6 found me in the same region, about six miles south of Houston, searching the marshes and ponds for nests of the Least Bittern and Purple Gallinule. On the 30th I had been quite successful, for had ! not located a nest of each containing five eggs ? In the enthusiasm of the new discoveries I laid Fig. 1. AT THE NEST OF THE LOUISIANA CLAPPER RAIL IN A MARSH NEAR HousToN, TEXAS. THE FEW SCRUBBY PERSIMMON TREES IN THE BACKGROUND FORM THE ONLY SHELTER fOR MILES. aside my seasoh's incubus--the search for a nest of friend Railus--and took to the marshes in an effort to locate further nests of those two birds. Merely as a matter of form, for that was one of my two regular routes when out abirding, I stopped at a favorite colony of the Florida Red-wing (Agelaius phoenicets phoeniceus) by the side of the road six miles from the city, and made a circuit of the two-acre marsh, checking the various birds and making a casual search for nests. Among the birds checked were two Mary- land Yellow-throats, male and female, a pair of birds whose nest had success- fully eluded me from year to year. It is true that on June 1, 1911, I found their nest in the tall bull-rushes near one side of the marsh, but not until the young were preparing to leave. Very naturally, what I wished to find was a nest containing eggs. So I stopped, shed my coat and hung it on a tiny persimmon tree growing