The Auk (Volume 23)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ...below. I saw twenty or thirty birds perish thus during the evening.1 1 Since the above was written I have seen six partially burned birds that were picked up on the outskirts of the fire. Two were Song Sparrows and four were Juncos. About a dozen others that were examined but not preserved were stated to belong to the same species. Some thirty thousand persons, it is estimated, viewed the fire, and a large number of them saw the birds, but probably very few appreciated the opportunity that was offered them of looking behind the dark curtain which so persistently shrouds one of nature's greatest mysteries, or realized that what they saw was, literally as well as figuratively, 'some light on night migration.' NESTING OF THE GREAT BLUE HERON IN MONTANA. BY E. S. CAMERON. Plates IV and V. Since living near the Yellowstone I have often wondered where the Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) nested which flew up and down the river, or stood motionless on the sandbars intercepting its brown flood. The different ferrymen, on being questioned, said the birds passed and repassed daily, but could supply no information as to their breeding haunts. Mr. A. C. Gifford of Fallen informed me that he recollected when there were twenty nests in some cottonwoods about two miles below his property, but was doubtful if herons bred there in recent years, and Mr. Dan Bowman had known of one nest on the Powder River in a cottonwood close to his ranch. These were my only records. Accordingly, on May 30 my wife and I rode to the grove indicated by Mr. Gifford and made a thorough investigation, which proved a task of some difficulty on account of the thick underbrush of wild roses, willows, and bulberry bushes, concealing regular pitfalls, through which a horse could scarcely...