120 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



species, while the pewee and the other smaller species stop in the southern 

 States. The flycatchers take their prey on the wing, not as the swallows 

 do in open chase over the fields and lanes ; but lying in wait, like the cats, they 

 dash out from their perch and seize their prey and bear it back to a secure 

 place to be eaten. They frequently have two perches at a convenient distance 

 from each other and pass their time in flitting back and forth from one to the 

 other, taking an insect at each flight. 



Our goatsuckers, — whippoorwill and nighthawks, — have also migrations of 

 great extent, going south to Central America, where they meet several other 

 species of their own race. 



Another bird remarkable for its migrations is our only species of humming 

 bird, the ruby throat. This bird nests as far north as the Red river and Hud- 

 son's bay, but winters in South America, as far down as the Amazon and 

 equator. It must be a strange instinct that impels this little atom of flesh, 

 no larger than one's thumb, to leave its troops of bright cousins in the ever- 

 blossoming jungles of the tropics, to fly over thousands of miles of mountain 

 and valley and stream, to perch its little nest in the elms of Michigan, and to 

 feed from the trumpets of the wild honey-suckle. One feels like questioning 

 this much traveled little fellow of the strange lands and peoples he has visited, 

 and welcoming him to the shadiest and coolest nooks and rarest flowers of our 

 woodland, which he has freely chosen instead of the stately palms and bright 

 orchids of Brazil. 



I have placed our kingfisher in this list of migratory birds, but it remains 

 with us until the streams freeze over, and then only retreats far enough to the 

 south to find open water. 



Three of our woodpeckers, the red-bellied, yellow-bellied, and flicker, or 

 golden-winged woodpecker, are partly migratory, while the red-headed wood- 

 pecker is decidedly so, usually retreating to the south of Pennsylvania and 

 Ohio. These partly migratory species are those which depart most widely from 

 the ordinary food of the family, which is insect larves, dug from decaying 

 wood; while those species which are stationary are nearest normal in this 

 respect. 



It is probable that eight of the hawks nesting in this State are migratory, 

 some going into South America and others only retreating a few degrees to the 

 south. Their place is taken during the winter by two species from the north. 



The movements of the wild pigeon, though it is migratory, are not so regular 

 as to be easily studied. Those which enter the State in large communities are 

 said to nest at least three times during the summer, first in the lower penin- 

 sula, then, perhaps in the upper, and again later in the season in British 

 America. 



There are always a few found nesting solitarily in the swamps through the 

 State, and these are found breeding as late as the middle of September. On 

 account of its usual gregarious habits the wild pigeon is only able to exist 

 where there are great quantities of suitable food within reach, and the ordinary 

 rules governing the migration of our birds seem to be entirely set aside, the 

 species migrating and nesting now in one State and now in another, wherever 

 food is plenty. They would be unable to exist long where the grouud was 

 covered with snow, so that there must be a north and south movement in com- 

 mon with the rest of the group. 



The rest of the birds falling into this list are water-fowl, — waders and swim- 

 mers, — plovers, snipes, sandpipers, herons, bitterns, rails, ducks, gulls, and 

 terns, nearly forty in number. I have made but little study of them, and 



