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Rafting on the beach, we will work inward,andoovereachtypeasitis found in diflerent localities. I know of one spot of smithern California. several hundred feet from the splashing waves of the Pacific where numerous tern, or sea-swallows, and snowy plovers nest. It is simply a barren stretch of sand dune. covered sparsley with a trailing plant known as ice-weed. There are stretches of bare sand in between this ice-weed. twenty to thirty feet wide. and in these spots the terns and snowy plovers lay their eggs. As for the nest, they build none. but are atisfied to make just a hollow in the sand do as a receptacle. gone, and without doubt, a great many more 01 their eggs than are lost now would be destroyed by prowling rats, cats. snakes and sea gulls. In my wanna-mg M the new. forests. maize: nnd benches in senrch of nature mate-ml. . I have naturally come upon many bird babes. Now with thismusofmyowndntabeforeme it is interesting to make conipnrisons. and to form reasons {yr the «113th types of nuts. and to: the use of var- ied materms. birds were to carry nesting material and place a heap or it on the beach, the protective value of their eggs would be Working back from the 'sand dunes. we come to grassy fields, and here nest the mellow-voiced larks. and their near cousins, the horned larks. Their nest also are placed on the ground, but are usually hidden under a small bush or a clunm of grass. As nest achitects they aspire slightly higher than their beach friends, for in addition to a hollow spot on the earth, they have a nest lining of soft inter-woven grasses. One reason for this is that while baby tems and baby players can run soon after hatch- ing. baby larks must stay in the nest until lully feathered. These nests, in other words. are not only receptacles (or the eggs, but nurseries for the The eggs are pmtectlvely colored and are extremely hard to find, so well do their musings resemble grains of sand and tiny sea shells. If either 0! these NEW;JUST IN/ Durham nutmwzanm LIMITED SUPPLY E. KRESS 85 SON Other birds, too, nest on the ground, such as the kingfisher and bank swal- low, but they dig their holes straight into the side of a sand bank, pushing out. the loose dirt with their feet. The bank swallow lines his small chamber with grasses and feathers, but the kingfisher is content to simply let an accumulation of fish scales and fish bones surround her hidden white eggs. At the base of the hedges quail nests are sometimes found, and they are almost always partly covered or domed. The floor of the nest, however, is not much. because the young quail, like baby chicks, can run about and follow their parents foraging in the fields, within a few hours after hatching. dogs. They can, when necessity com- pels, chip may a little dirt, and often it the hole they want to use is too deep will plug it up at a depth of two or three feet. Where they plug it up they peel: and dig at the walls until a nest- ing chamber from eight to ten inches wide is made. Here in the pitch black- Bordering the fields is a long row of hedges, not very tall or imposing, but still having its bird pOpulation. Song sparrows build both in the branches and on the ground below them. The lower part of their nest is bulky and made of coarse material. but the cup, or hollow, is lined with soft fibers to make a comfortable home for the young. In this same hedge-row nest California Towhees, sombre birds that spend most of their lives scratching at dry leaves in search of insects and weed-seeds}. In building their nests they usually use very dark material to match their somber colors, and to blend with the shaded ground that is us- ually only a foot or so below. ness, under the ground, they lay their eggs and raise their young. youngaswell. On the same grassy fields nest amp! is a misnomer. for they do not dig their own bola but usurp the burrows or From the hedges we roam on to some new trails in satisfactory performance; uclusive Rogers spray-shielding of tubes ensures longer life and quieter reception; full»range tone control; full-vision illumin- ated dial; double rubber suspension; 1 large size electrovdynatnic speaker; s smartly designed manicl that i} an use: to appointment: of any room! Never before so much for so little! .00 this remarkable low-priced be! today. treesmthedistanceandha'ewecome Inasmallconiterupneerthetop, there are a number of Brewer's Black- birds, birds that almost always colo- nize in their nesting sites. Some of the conifers will have four or five nests in their branches, and it a crew or a hawk comes along, all the bfickbirds combine to drive him out of their ter- ritory. In the lower limbs of the coni- fers nest a pair of goldfinch, the male of which has such a cheery, pleasing song. Their home is small and oommct, but, nevertheless, well built. The out- side is covered with a gray plant down. which keeps the incubating mother from standing out t00 plainly, while the inside.is lined with a white, cot- tony-looking substance, made up of milkweed, thistle and cattail. Not far from the goldfinch nest is the slipshod one of the mourning dove, a poor job at best. It is merely ,a rough, flat platform of sticks upon which the eggs are precariously laid. Some of the nests are made so flim- sily that the eggs, or young, can be seen from underneath. Quite often, due to the poor construction, the eggs or the squabs roll off to perish on the ground below. One one occasion when I inadvertently brushed by a branch on which a mourning dove was cover- ing her youngsters, she flew off so hur- riedly that both babies fell to the ground. Replacing them in the nest, I walked on. Passing a few days later, only one remained, and I judged that the other one fell again and was gob- bled up by some marauding house cat. Further on we come to a farm house. with its barns and sheds, a haven for certain types of birds that realize some humans are friendly. Way up in one corner of the loft there is a white-faced object moving back and forth with snapping bill, and uttering menacing hisses. Right below this barn, or mon‘ key-faced owl, are seven chalky-white eggs. There is no nest to speak of. just debris, such as the bones and fur of her rodent victims piled about her treasures. On the eves outside the farmhouse nest many cliff swallows (before the advent of houses in America, they plastered their nests against cliffs). Each one is gourd-shaped and made THE DURHAM CHRONICLE aolelyotmudlndnmpmthertheee homeostandupvery mll,butifm- era! weeks pass without rain, the mud becomes dry and brittle, and the nests eggsorbobleamahto the ground. There is much tedious work on these homes, and thousands of trips we made by the parent birds before enough mud is transported to finish the dwelling. Intherearotthefarmwelocatea house-men’s nest in a large box. In picking out this site, she evidently thought it was too spacious and so started to fill it up with sticks and twigs. Hw many trips she made be- fore succeeding in her work is hand to say, but her nest is tully (in this in- stance) twenty times as big as she is. Up in one comer of the box she left a cup-shaped hole about the size 0: a golf ball, just big enough for her tiny body to fit in comfortably. Here she has already laid her brown-speckled In the front of the farmhouse where we found the wren and the swanows there stands a tall palm, Sewed under one of the dead leaves hangs the pensile nest of the hooded oriole. This truly is made by one of the best of the feathered achi- tects, and is constructed wholly of thin, thread-like plant fibers, all in- tricately woven' together. The wide palm leaf above acts as a shielding roof to shed the rain. That it dm its work well, and serves a useful pur- pose, can plainly be seen, for thwe nests will endure through the storms of several seasons, although they are used only once, One of the prettiest of the pensile nests is made by just a mite of a bird called the Bushtit. They are even smaller than the wren, but their nests are often more than a foot in length. They are gourd-shaped, and have a small entrance near the top. The care, precision, and work used in making them can be better realized when a discarded nest is taken apart and ex- amined. I did this once and believe that I handled more than two thous- and pieces of nesting material. Moss, string, plant fibers, and in fact every- thing that could possibly be used, were to be found in that bird's home. Still further inland we come to the desert region here grow varied types of cacti. Bird the locality have learn- ed to use t armored plant for nest- ing sites. It offers a certain protection from prowling mammals and they well seem to realize this fact. The road- runner, for instance, rarely if ever nests in anything else, and they often line the rims of their nests with bits of loose cactus, to make an enemy's approach doubly hard. Another cactus nester is the cactus wren, one of the most cheerful of all the desert dwellers. They practise de- ception by building several nests in plain sight. The real nest, however, the one that contains the eggs, is usu- ally pretty well hidden. They are globular in shape and cornpletely dom- ed over. The birds enter through a small hole in one side, and seem to trap with immunity over the armored spines. cactus some of the woodpeckers ex- cavate their burrows. The gila wood- pecker (pronounced hee-la), named for the Gila River, is the best known of these. They drill a hole about twelve or fourteen inches deep, and four or five inches wide, right in the heart of the heavy cactus trunk. They enter this nest through a doorway at the top. about an inch and a half in dia- ing on some investigations at Upper Murray Lake. a game preserve near San Diego. Two of the birds that I have been watching. coats and pied-J billed grebes (the latter better known as hell-divers), build {looting nests, held in place by reeds or‘tules. As the lake rises and lowers, so do the nests, and they gently bob up and down on the small waves. -- Soem of the fresh- and salt-water sloughs have interesting nesters. In the last few weeks I have been carry- The grebes have that interesting hab- it of covering their eggs with debris when they leave, and I well remember the first grebe nest that I found. I was paddling about the tules, when I sud- denly saw a pile of rubbish ahead. I was just about to pass it by, thinking it a last year's nest. when a patch of turning to shore, I watched it thmugh AIter a long time a head stuck out of the water right at the rear of this peculiar home, and the grebe looked about to see if all was well,â€"the coast cleansotospeehltmmherbodw rose out, and she thed upon her nest. After a hurried looks, she reached down with her b111, pushed the cover- showmehowttwascovereilsmted to cough, very low at first, but getting louder, not wishmgtomhermo 9.1: were held stralght tn the th- asshe trledtomlmlcadeadreedstock. So well did her pose match her sur- roundings that had it not been for the nest far below, I probably would not have seen her, and as it- wns, the ma- jorlty of people would have passed her I am of the opinion that the high- est type of bird architecture is that achieved by the birds that saddle their nests on branches. 'I‘wo birds that build nests of this typeâ€"the humming- bird and the wood peeweeâ€" are well known through the medium IOX Lacrosse Durham THURSDAY, ept. 22 P110110 140 18 tight on the eggs was' periments conducted to date the Oper- east Bitter-n. Her nook and atlon of the “combine" under eastern held straight in the m- oonditons appears quite feasible where to mimic a dead reed stock. the recovery of straw is of no import- her pose match her sur- ance. Where straw recovery necessary .AL 1- Durham Machine Shop - F. W. MOON , Proprietor "1d fifty tact before Admission MonthebrlnchtMyMNcho-an torulwmedthhummer-ne‘ tmaytrdsnyloohverymuch ukeuknoton‘umb.1'heympno- many impossible to tmdunleutho parent bird is teen going home. Bird nesting afield). not at hue in a cabinet, is an extremely (”ducting ittoryeu's,yetlstincettheulno thriilnowatfindinganewnecttnat I did when just a, beginner. Alny: inthiswa-kthereismtnincnew. something just a little more interesting â€"-right around the corner. Commenting on the generel («slunty of the “"oombine in havesttnc grain in Eastern Canada, E. S. Hopktns, DO- miniot Field Humanun, tn his an- nual report for 1931 says: “From ex- periments conducted to date the Oper- ation of the “combine" under eastern oonditons appears quite feasible where the recovery of straw is of no import- the combine, though quite Is feasible. appears to be of doubtful economy a operated ct present. This conclusion might be revised with the development of more economical means of strw recovery and the introduction of 0. type of machine with a hishter capac- ity and lower operating cost. The com- bine has now been operated in Ottawa for the last four years and complete information on th equipment used. cost of operation and results of ex- periments conducted each year. my be found in the past annual reports." COMBINING IN THE EAST Durham. Ont. - PAGE I