320 



Illinois were all of the praiuie variety, j;rr///>wi?r/. With habits much 

 like those of the meadow-lark, they differed from that species 

 widely in their local distribution, especially in their preference 

 for plowed ground, on which they occurred at the rate of 230 

 per square mile as against IS meadow-larks for the same area. 

 Their next preference was for pastures, where 97 per square 

 mile were found, the remainder occurring mostly on stubble 

 and young wheat. 25 and 29 per square mile respectively. Nearly 

 two thirds of their actual numbers were found in pasture-lands, 

 17 per cent, were on plowed ground, and 12 per cent, on stub- 

 ble. The remainder were in fields of wheat and corn, 3 per 

 cent, in each. 



Moiinnn[/-d<)r('s. ~MouYnms;-doves were mainly in pastures 

 (40 per cent.), corn Helds (29 pev cent.), and stubble lands (23 

 per cent.), these three situations thus containing 92 per cent, 

 of all these birds recorded. As tested by the average numl)ers 

 per square mile, their preferences seem much less definite. 

 While commonest on pasture-lands (50 to the square mile ), they 

 were almost as abundant in stul)ble, meadows, and orchards, — 

 about 40 per mile in each situation, — and more than half as 

 common iu corn fields (26 to the mile). Their occurrence on 

 plowed ground and wheat was only occasional, and their num- 

 bers there were trivial. 



Gofdp')iclics and Fic/d-siitn-rows. — These little birds were at 

 this time similarly distributed, occurring in the same situations 

 and in nearly equal ratios in each. Both were most numerous 

 in pastures, 42 per cent, for the goklhnches and 40 per cent, for 

 the field-sparrows, and were otherwise rather equally scattered 

 through corn fields and orchards and on waste patches of weeds. 

 In birds per square mile they were about three times as com- 

 mon in orchards as in all the other places taken together, their 

 next apparent preference being for pasture-lands, where, how- 

 ever, the sparrows averaged only 23 to the square mile and the 

 goldfinches 39. 



Summary for Principal Species. 



Summarizing now the data for all these nine species taken 



