CoMPTON — The Birds of Douglas Lake Regiox 179 



Name of Bird Nests or Young Abundance Frequency Habitat 



Common tern (-t(!) . .r. .l)e;ifli and open water 



Caspian tern C.VA) . .c. .l)eaeh and open water 



Pied-billed sreiie (47) . .r. .beaoli and open water 



Loon, younij; (28) . .e. .beach and open water 



Only such nests as were found actually occupied by the 

 birds are recorded as " nests," the accompanying numeral in- 

 dicating the number belonging to that particular species. The 

 word " young " is used to indicate that young of the species 

 were observed outside of the parental nest. "Nest?" is used 

 to designate a probable nest, probability being based on see- 

 ing the parent bird with a larva in its beak, at the same time 

 showing great concern over the approach of the writer. 



12 of the species on the list show a decided preference for 

 the society of man, for his houses, barns, cultivated lands and 

 the like. With the 11 native birds this preference is doubt- 

 less acquired recently in a biological sense, the other, the 

 English sparrow has doubtless had this preference for a long 

 period of time even as biologists reckon it. They are the 

 bluebird, house wren, ^-ellow warbler, barn swallow, purple 

 martin, clifif swallow, meadowlark, bobolink, prairie horned 

 lark, phoebe, and quail ; these all rank low in the scale of 

 abundance, the house wren (30) being most abundant, the 

 average for the 11 about 41. 



The habitats most characteristic of the wilderness are the 

 bog and the aspens, of our list 6 belong to the former and 5 

 to the latter ; it w^ill be noted that together they equal the 

 number of native speci'cs showing a preference for human 

 society. The vesper sparrow has an abundance of (8) and 

 the whippoorwill (12), but the others rank much like the 

 birds of the preceding paragraph. 



35 species show-ed no decided preference of any kind, but 

 were quite generally distributed thruout the territory. To 

 this group belong the cedar waxwing (1), song sparrow (2), 

 crow (3), and towhee (4). Of the chewink or towdiee Bar- 

 rows says : " It is far from common about Little Traverse in 

 Emmett County." ^ It is only two miles to the Emmett- 

 ^Michigan Bird Life, W. B. Barrows, 1912, page 526. 



