l86 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



er wintering records. Mr. F. B. Spaulding ('86) reports robins 

 as numerous about Lancaster during the winter of '85-'86, 

 "something very unusual." Mr. V. D. Lowe also tells me 

 that occasionally a few winter about Randolph, to the north of 

 the White Mountains in the valley of the Androscoggin. 

 Dates : (February 28) March 3 to December 25 ; Winter. 



254. Sialia sialis (Linn.). Bluebird. 



A common summer resident of the Transition regions. It is 

 generally found in open land near farms, or among the orchard 

 trees, and the bhds are already on their breeding grounds be- 

 fore the snow has disappeared. The great destruction of Blue- 

 birds by a blizzard which swept the country as they were jour- 

 neying northward in the spring of 1895, is well known, and in 

 New Hampshire as elsewhere a great scarcity of Bluebirds was 

 recorded for that spring. They seem quickly to have recovered 

 from the blow, however, and in 1897, I almost daily observed 

 from 4 to 20 or more birds in the Saco valley during September, 

 and they have since been present in about their former num- 

 bers. Single flocks will often, in their leisurely fall migration, 

 stop for three or four days at a time in the same locality, evi- 

 dently finding food in plenty, and thus being in no haste to pass 

 on. Mr. C. J. Maynard ('72) records their breeding at Lake 

 Umbagog. 



l>ates : March 2 to October 9. 



