THE ANNUAL MEETING. 119 



here, and those birds from which we must get our chief help in our war with 

 insect life. Coming in early spring, as soon as the first humming or crawling 

 thing is warmed into life, they fight it out with us on that line all summer, and 

 do not leave us until our flying enemies have flown their last, and the crawling 

 ones have folded themselves away for their winter's nap. I make out a list of 

 one hundred and ten of these birds, of which eighty-one, chiefly land birds, 

 are certain, and twenty-nine, chiefly water fowl and waders, I have marked as 

 doubtful, as 1 have not verified their nesting in the State, though there is no 

 doubt that most of them do. 



Among the birds of this group of sufficient importance to be mentioned in 

 a paper of this length, are the thrushes, five species of which, including the 

 bluebird, nest here. They are very numerous in individuals, and are vora- 

 cious feeders. The migrations of the common robin, the most abundant 

 species of the group, are curious and instructive. It nests from arctic Amer- 

 ica to Mexico, and winters from Ohio, and sometimes Michigan, to Central 

 America, the summer and winter residences thus overlapping for most of their 

 extent. All of our wrens, and some six or seven warblers, belong in this 

 group, and here also are found the five species of swallows, and six of vireos; 

 botli families being of inestimable value to man, and with no set-off of grain 

 or fruit destroyed to make our recollections of them bitter-sweet. As the 

 forces in manly war are divided into foot and horse and artillery, each branch 

 of the service attacking the enemy in its own way and place, so do our 

 feathered friends. The thrushes attack upon the ground, the vireos follow 

 up by pursuing in the trees, and the swallows Avheel and circle and charge upon 

 those which have taken refuge in the air. So fixed are these families in their 

 methods of food-taking that they would probably starve to death before they 

 would adopt any other. In this group are also found some ten sparrows and 

 finches, usually feeding upon weed and grass seeds. They are harmless at all 

 times, and are of great use during their season of nesting, from the curious 

 fact that they choose out as food for their young, soft, fleshy, insect larves. 

 The greater part of the finches winter in the southern States, but a few species 

 keep on to Mexico and South America. Among these are two of our brightest 

 birds, the rose-breasted grosbeak and indigo bird, which seem to dress them- 

 selves up in these bright feathers that they may not seem out of place among 

 the bright birds of the tropics. 



The next family, that of American starlings — the blackbirds, bobolinks, and 

 orioles — contains birds which are omnivorous in their foods, and though at some 

 times they may be of great service in their destruction of insects, at others they 

 destroy grain enough to make them of doubtful value, when their accounts are 

 fairly balanced. The bobolink, after nesting in our meadows, hastens toward 

 the south as soon as his family are able to be moved, this usually occurring in 

 August, before other birds have thought of winter. But the bobolink has in 

 mind the rice fields of the southern States, where he remains and fattens for 

 a month or two before he takes his final departure for Central and South 

 America. It is probable that the bobolink remains but a short time at the other 

 limit of its migration, and so passes nearly its whole time in moving from the 

 La Plata to the Saskatchewan. This is probably the greatest extent of migra- 

 tion reached by any species. The orioles also winter in South America, and 

 it is probable that they leave for the south much earlier than most migratory 

 birds, though I have seen no observations of their habits in this respect. Of 

 the five or six flycatchers nesting with us, the kingbird and great-crested fly- 

 catcher winter in South America, where they are found associated with allied 



