244 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



two broods of young. Apparently an effort to raise a third or a very 

 late brood causes them often to abandon it to starve when they leave us 

 in August. 



In the following table I have included only those land-birds that are 

 best observed in regard to habits, giving the records I have made at 

 the chief localities where I have collected in the proper seasons, and 

 adding such notes as seemed suitable, made by me in other localities, 

 and by others where exact dates of the events are given. The object 

 has been to give exact dates of the usual arrival and departure (with 

 a few also quite exceptional), and the first laying of eggs noticed, as 

 well as the latest when long after. A few quotations of observations 

 in other regions are also given for comparison, but these are much fewer 

 than desirable from the fact that the older authors neglected usually to 

 give the exact dates, and where the month only is given a comparison of 

 times through a range of twenty degrees of latitude is impracticable. 

 The categories of " Eesident," etc., refer only to the localities given in 

 the general table. 



The arrangement of localities being by date of collections is not ex- 

 actly according to their relative positions in latitude. 



My opportunities for observing in regard to most aquatic birds have 

 been too few to be worth noting, the sea-shore and the great interior 

 marshes or lakes not having been visited at the proper seasons, except 

 in a few localities. Where it is practicable the dates of laying of the 

 Gulls, Murres, and other birds whose eggs are collected for market, are 

 found quite uniform, though showing the influence of early or late sea- 

 sons in a certain degree. This makes them well worthy of record when- 

 ever opportunities are offered. 



