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July, i9oo[ THE CONDOR bers of the Cooper Ornithological Club, however, will not think it strange that the next afternoon found me afield in quest of curlews' eggs. The field where I had watched the female so long, was the place of operations, and after an hour of tramping I excited the atten- tion of a male. Keeping on the move aimlessly to get him to play "hot" or "cold," I was lead through a, barbed wire fence into a field which I had crossed. Beginning my search in the direction the nmle pointed as he fre- quently flew toward me, after less than an hour of careful scrutiny of the ground in.the supposed quarter of the circle about nly central stick, I saw the fenrole as before flattened upon the ground beside a pile of dried cow chips, less than twenty feet from me. As in the former instance, she fluttered from the nest as I approached her, and tried to lead me away by feigning to be crippled. ()he of her tricks was to qower her head, with bill ahnost touch- ingthe grouud, and run along in a shame-faced sort of way. 'This nest was constructed almost like the first; but was situated more among grass blades, which grew up around the rim of the structure. It contained four eggs, placed like the others, with the pointed ends toward the middle of the nest. The four eggs are nearly alike, the ground heing more greenish than those of the first set, one of them having markings noticeably wreathed at the larger end, another having nmrkings thickly congregated upon the large end,. all having other markings quite generally distributed besides those mentioned. These eggs average about three-sixteenths of an inch less in length than those of the the first set. It was my fortune once. to enjoy an outing in an Illinois swamp with a lrieud who was collecting for his first season. Frequently. wheu he came upon a nest of coot or gallinule, I would suggest that as they were so plentiful and the grounds so close, we might leave the eggs. He would reply that though they seemed so plentiful then, another year they might not be so abundant, as the water might be too high or too low, or the birds might leave; hence it was best to get all we wanted then, and we should have them at any future tinhe when they might be scarcer. I have always remembered my friend's advice, and so when the 'next morning canhe, May 30, it brought me leisure in the forenoon to continue the quest for curlews' nests. Taking my son with me, to help play the cur- lews and thus save tinhe, ? went farther into the pasture where I had found my first set, as on that occasion I had counted as lnany as twelve hirds in viexv while searching for the first nest. The pasture being more than a mile in length. I knew that there was room for more than one nest, and on getting into the farther side of the field, as my son was walking down a hmg slope at the end of a gentle swell, he attracted the attention of a male, which hovered over him uttering its cackling whistle, the sound reminding me of the jarring of a freight train as it is about stopping with set brakes. Following my tactics as on former oc- casions, we found the nest in a search of less than an hour. My son sa?v the female on her nest, and remarked that at first he thought it was a dead chicken. This bird sat so closely that I could touch her with a walking stick I carried, before she fluttered from her .eggs; and as I suspected,. they were advanced in incpbation, though not enough to give troutfie in blowing them. There were four eggs, placed as Usual in the nest. Three of them are the usual light greenish olive pat- tern, with heavy blotching upon the large end of two of tl!em; the fourth has a nmch lighter ground, thns fur- nishing a uew patteru of coloration quite different from any of the other eggs described. At the risk of being denominated an "egg hog," I shall have to confess that