. The oist . sleepysea. Sometimes the stream contractsto a few dozen birds abreast, giving aminor note to the music. Then as itwidens, the sound gradually increasesin volume until the uproar is gradually dies away as the lastbelated traveller finds his roost, leav-ing the observer to moralize over thewonders of nature. This year, 1912, but very few Bronz-ed Grackles succeeded in rearing abrood. A small colony of some fifteenpair on my farm succeeded in rearingtheir young in safety with some help;on two different occasions, squirrelsattempting to dispoil the nests of eggsand young;
. The oist . sleepysea. Sometimes the stream contractsto a few dozen birds abreast, giving aminor note to the music. Then as itwidens, the sound gradually increasesin volume until the uproar is gradually dies away as the lastbelated traveller finds his roost, leav-ing the observer to moralize over thewonders of nature. This year, 1912, but very few Bronz-ed Grackles succeeded in rearing abrood. A small colony of some fifteenpair on my farm succeeded in rearingtheir young in safety with some help;on two different occasions, squirrelsattempting to dispoil the nests of eggsand young; but the colony being nearthe house, I was at hand with a shot-gun. Until the last few years the FoxSquirrel was an unknown quantity inthis locality. The first few pairs thatarrived were hailed with delight andstringent laws passed for their protec-tion; but they have proved of no eco-nomic value and are second to noneas bird destroyers, but they are stillprotected. Guy , Kansas. 362 THE OOLOGIST. California Condor and Egg in Collection. THE OOLOGIST 868 The Scarlet Tanager. On the 31st of August while spend-ing a week in the Allegheny Moun-tains near Uniontown, Pa., I cameacross a very interesting thing. Iwas walking through the small or-chard when I noticed a Scarlet Tan-ager behaving in a very peculiar man-ner. It would cling to the side of anold apple tree for a few seconds andthen fly to a limb and pick violentlyat its tail. After I had watched itdoing this several times, I becamecurious and went closer to see whatwas going on. The bird was very in-terested in what it was doing, so thatI was able to approach within a fewfeet, and its actions were soon per-fectly clear to me. There was a smallcolony of little red ants in a crotch ofthe tree and as there was no otherway in which to get at them, the birdwould let its tail hang among the antsuntil a lot had crawled on it, and thenMy to a limb and eat them off. I haveseen many examples of the intelli-gence of birds,
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