Notes on Bird-Lore's Eleventh Christmas Census 297 



found in smaller numbers as far south as New Jersey and Colorado. Pine 

 Siskins, on the other hand, which in the fall had been abundant in eastern 

 Massachusetts, had almost abandoned that region, and had gone farther 

 south and west, being most numerous in Connecticut, Long Island and 

 Wisconsin. 



The Robin makes a strange showing in the tables. As is well known to 

 Massachusetts ornithologists, these birds were very unusually, if not unpre- 

 cedentedly (for the winter season), abundant in this state during the winter 

 of 1910-11, and especially during late December and early January. It is 

 to be hoped that some one will investigate the causes of this before the con- 

 ditions have faded from the memories of observers. The census shows that 

 this abundance was very local. Out of 522 Robins, 353 were reported from 

 Massachusetts — all from the eastern half of the state; 69 from Orient, L. I., 

 and 100 from Palma Sola, Fla. Elsewhere the largest numbers found were 

 8 at Westville, Conn., and 12 at Plainfield, N. J. Only one bird was reported 

 from Pennsylvania, one from Maryland, and two from South Carolina; and 

 none appears from any other Southern State except Florida. In Florida, the 

 100 at Palma Sola is the only record; none w^ere seen at Coronado Beach, Day- 

 tona Beach, or Jacksonville. This apparent scarcity of the Robin between 

 Long Island and Florida is not very unusual, however, as a reference to the 

 other Christmas censuses shows. Indeed, even in Florida, the reports of the 

 Robin are very irregular from year to year, the bird sometimes being entirely 

 absent from a given locality, while the next year it may be present in large 

 numbers. The only abnormal thing about last Christmas' showing, there- 

 fore, is the very unusual abundance of the species in eastern Massachusetts 

 and at Orient, L. I. Mr. Nathan Clifford Brown, in the April, 191 1, 'Aiik\ 

 notes the remarkable numbers of Robins in Maine this last jvinter. He says 

 that the food of those that he watched in Portland consisted mainly of moun- 

 tain-ash berries, of which there was a heavy crop. I know of no exceptional 

 conditions in eastern Massachusetts which would ha\^e provided an unusual 

 amount of food for Robins here, where the mountain-ash is found only as a 

 planted. tree, and is not particularly common. It is possible, however, that an 

 abundance of this particular crop to the north of us may have detained the 

 birds there until the impulse to migrate south had passed, and that when 

 food began to fail there they wandered to Massachusetts in search of it. In 

 support of this view is the fact that though, in my immediate locaHty at 

 least, Robins were present in unusual numbers earlyxn December, they increased 

 greatly in abundance in the month or six weeks following. (Usually they have 

 practically deserted us before the middle of November.) This is thrown out 

 as a suggestion; but I hope that some one may have investigated the case 

 more thoroughly than it has been possible for me to do. 



