Bird lore - Project Puffin

320 Bird - Lore
Alleghany Mountains. The bird was first
seen in a garden on Sunday, November 7,
by the family living in the tenant house.
The men at once tried to shoot it, but it
escaped.
The next morning Harry Caldwell, son
of the tenant, took his gun and started to
look for the huge bird. He found it in
the woods a quarter of a mile from the
house, and shot at it three times. For-
tunately, he only stunned the Eagle and,
with the assistance of two other men, succeeded
in binding him and carrying him
home alive.
On hearing of it, I took my 'Bird
Guide' and went at once to see the Eagle.
He corresponded exactly to the descrip-
tion given of the Golden Eagle in Chas.
K. Reed's 'Water and Game Birds East of
the Rockies.' He measures 35 inches in
length and 6 feet, 10 inches from tip to tip
of the wings.
Harry Caldwell, who is a poor boy in
feeble health, exhibited the Golden
Eagle in Roanoke, Virginia, the past two
weeks, in order to secure funds for medical
treatment, and realized $300 from the
exhibit. The Eagle has thoroughly recovered
from its wounds, one of which was
on the beak, another on a claw, and I
failed to locate the third.—Mss. B. F.
Shaver, Troutville, Va.
House Sparrows Destroy Crocuses
I never knew how far down the animal
scale ingratitude extended until the
depredations of a flock of House Sparrows
awakened me to the fact. All winter long
a sense of pity for these starving birds,
shuddering in the deep snows, caused us
to feed them, day by day, almost lavishly.
The snow disappeared at length, and like
magic, thousands of yellow crocuses starred
the lawns about our home, a joy to us and
to our friends. But one day the old half-
breed Indian, who is always pottering
about the grounds, came with a querulous
message: "Come out, and see what these
d English Sparrows are doing! They
are tearing the crocuses in pieces !"
Sure enough, they had plucked the
—
petals from many of the delicious flowers,
in pure wantonness. The grass was littered
with them. The abominable little hyphens
would swoop down on a clump of glowing
blossoms and tear them to pieces in a
sort of fury ! Frightened away, they would
return again and again, like 'sportsmen'
that revel in the insane joy of murder.
It has been our infelicitous experience,
again and again, on rising, to find that
these pirates of the air had sailed down
with the dawn and plundered our golden
argosies. The last of the flowers were
rifled yesterday. Has any one else had
this unique form of depredation by the
House Sparrows? Geo. T. Welch,
Passaic, N. Y.
Evening Grosbeaks and Other Rarities
at Bethel, Vt.
The field-notes concerning Evening
Grosbeaks have interested us as we have
been watching them here, this last winter.
On February 5 one female appeared in our
maple. On February 18 a female was with
Goldfinches in our sumac tree. March 12
brought us a male, eating seeds from a
locust tree. Several people reported one
or more of these birds about the town.
I saw no more until April 23, when a flock
of twenty appeared on another street.
These birds stayed about that locality. I
saw the flock again on May 9, and on May
14 I found one bird, a female. This is the
latest date I have for 1916.
Last year, I noted, for the first time, the
nesting of the House Wren in our village.
A boy put up a box, made not at all accord-
ing to the rules, but the Wrens filled it full
of sticks, and apparently lived happily.
This year another boy, in the same neigh-
borhood, has a pair of House Wrens in a
box that is made with a proper opening,
though the box is unnecessarily large.
Another House Wren sings in a locust
grove on a different street.
On May 16, a neighbor came in the rain
to tell me of great white birds over the
river. They proved to be a pair of Caspian
Terns, birds that we have never before
seen here, though we occasionally see