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cent, of the entire journey was in fields of corn. The next 

 largest area was in blue-grass pastures, over which my observ- 

 ers traveled 51 miles, determining the birds of 926.65 acres, which 

 was 26.6 per cent, of the whole area of their observations. 

 Thirty -seven and four tenths miles in fields of stubble, mainly 

 oats, averaging 18.2 acres each, gave a total of 680.56 acres for 

 the 50-yard strip, or 19.5 per cent, of its entire length. Thus 

 the oats fields were more than one half, and the pastures 

 more than two thirds, the area in corn, and these three crops 

 together covered 83 per cent, of the surface. If to this we add 

 the 4.5 per cent, of meadow-lauds, we have nearly 88 per cent, 

 of the total area in corn, oats, and grass (including in the last 

 a small amount of clover, usually growing with timothy). 



The surface in wheat is not accurately obtainable from 

 these data, since wheat sowing had not begun and plowing for 

 wheat was not hnished when the start was made, but both 

 were finished l)efore the trip was ended. If virtually all the 

 fall plowing was being done for wheat, the area in that crop 

 was about 7 per cent., or 260 acres for the 14 miles traveled 

 through 93 fields. About 2i miles were traveled through 23 

 orchards, aggregating 1.3 per cent, of the strip, or 46.7 acres in 

 all. The marshes, waste lands, forests, gardens, farmyards, 

 brushy hollows, and other miscellaneous tracts examined, 

 amount to 2.7 per cent, of the whole. An immense plain of 

 corn, oats, and grass, the first greatly predominating, with a 

 little wheat, less clover, and an occasional farm orchard — this 

 is the region, quite typical for nearly all the central two thirds 

 of Illinois, from which these data were drawn. 



General Distribution according to Crops. 



We have next to see how our 4800 birds, belonging to 93 

 species, — and especially how our 15 most abundant species, rep- 

 resented by 4076 birds, — had distributed themselves over the 

 3500 acres in these crops actually scrutinized by these observers. 



This latter query admits of various answers: (1 ) we may 

 simply give the number of individuals of each species observed 

 in each kind of crop; (2) we may give the number of species on 



