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A Swimming Crow
On the 17th of May of last year I visited a locality about a dozen miles from Boston which is a specially interesting one, both botanically and ornithologically—one of those swamps which form Canadian islands in our Transitton fauna and floraibut the strangest thing I saw that day was not connected with any of the rare birds or plants which are found there It was the sight of a Crow going in swimming! It was a sick Crow evidently. and lcame upon him just as I was emerging irom the wooded swamp out upon an open marsh. He was flapping altd floundering his way along the ground toward a hrook which separates the meadow from the woods. and as l approached he reached the dilapidated bridge that crosses the stream. and tumbled, whether accidentally or purposely, trom one of its loose timbers into the water. When I got to the bridge I found him alloat in an eddy of the brook about six feet away from me, right side up, but with his head en~ tirely underwater and apparently held there deliberately! He kept his head snhinerged for some time—a full minute. I should say ~and l was beginning to think I had met with a case of bird suicide. when he took it out and shook it and floated off into the current Here he looked like 3 Duck, sit- ting up in the water as if entire v at home in that element. As he drifted down
stream, he put his head under water again, but this time only for a few seconds. As there is a bend in the lltook at this point. the current car d him across to the other side, and he tloundered out and up the bank through the bushes into the woods. I
could see no injury- to his wings—his tecr net-er came into tull \‘lcu'ilnll it was evident that he could neither fly nor walk. and. from his apparent disregard ot my pre- sence. it seemed to he a case ot sickness. Perhaps he had a had lteadacllei or per. llaps he may hate heeu suttering trom the attacks oi some parasite. A lriend has sug—
gested that the hiding oi the head may ltuie been prompted by the desire for cont-eul— ment, as in the case of the Ostrich and the sand. But why should he have takentu the water in the first place? I cannot help thinking that his bath was an intentional At all events, the soaking of the head was deliberate and not due to helplessness or clttmsiness. Has anyone else had a similar experienceP7FRAxclS H. Area, IVt’JI Roxbury. Muir.
one.
Nest-Building Habits of the Chickadee
Although the Chickadee sometimes breeds in the allalldoncd nests of Woodpeckers. and sometimes deepens and enlarges knot- holes, it more frequently does all the “ork of excavation itselt. For this purpose it usually chooses an old stump. or an upright dead linih so dry and puntr that the bark is falling offt The wood must he soft, otherwise the bird's bill is too weak to work in it.
The chips are not flirted out upon the ground after the manner of the Downy Woodpecker, but are invariably carried out in the bill to a short distance from the hole Both male and female work together, and appear to share equally in the labor. One enters the hole, rclnaills long enough to gather a hillful or \vootlg usually from ten to thirty seconds—then
and then dropped,
emerges and flies to some contiguous branch. where it drops the chips. Then it returns to a perch near the hole, or sometimes to the edge of the opening. where it w s for its mate, now inside. to emerge. When the latter pops out. in it goes without it mo-
ment's delay. The mate, having ~imi|arly disposed of its load of t'lllpx. relurm in readiness to enter when the other leaves. \Vith brief rotation is
otten kept up tor hours at a time. The dis,
internussions this
tance which the hirds carry the chips varies. but it is usually only to some convenient twig from {\Yenlyri'lt't' tn seventy-tire feet
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