20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



three species attracted there no doubt by the berries. On Sep- 

 tember 13, after I had not seen a Wood Thrush or a Hermit 

 Thrush for three weeks, and had concluded they had all worked 

 down to the river valleys as the theory is, I found one individ- 

 ual of each species on the barrens. A few days earlier I had 

 come upon flocks of Chewinks and Bluebirds and many Flickers 

 and several Tanagers — these latter all in green plumage — on the 

 barrens, and in the second week in September on an automobile 

 ride up the Delaware to Milford and back I had seen few birds 

 of any kind, save Crows and Bluejays. Indeed, during the 

 first two weeks in September the barrens were fairly alive with 

 birds, while in the woods at Buck Hill, 500 feet lower than the 

 barrens' 2,000 feet, there were very few birds. There were oc- 

 casional Brown Thrashers to be met with on the barrens, but 

 everywhere about Buck Hill they were scarce. 



The bird that drew me most often to the barrens was a small 

 Thrush, whose only possible identification would seem to be as 

 Bicknell's Thrush. I know the songs of the Wood Thrush, 

 Veery, Hermit Thrush and Olive-backed Thrush, and the song of 

 this bird was not the song of any of these. Either I never heard 

 it close at hand or else it is a song of poor carrying quality, for it 

 always seemed as if I but half heard it. I had only one look at 

 the bird at close quarters, but several times I flushed it in the 

 scrub only to have it dive into the thick growth and elude me. 

 I started out several times before daylight and reached the bar- 

 rens by sunrise, but I was not rewarded by seeing the bird as it 

 sang or even by getting another satisfactory look at it. I men- 

 tion the bird only because Mr. Carter and Mr. Baily have seen 

 Thrushes they take to be Bicknell's Thrush in the southwestern 

 Poconos. * 



The two hard winters of 1903-04 and 1904-05 probably ex- 

 jilain why I never came across a Quail, but I cannot explain so 

 easily why I never saw the sign of an Owl. It was not their 

 noisy season when I was there, but that I heard not a hoot or 

 the startled beating of wings as I came through brush after 

 nightfall or that I discovered no tragedies of the nests to be 



*Cf. Cassinia, 1904, p. ;i5. 



