TH E 



WILSON BULLETIN 



NO. 109 

 A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 



VOL. XXXI DECEMBER, 1919 NO. 4 



OLD SERIES VOL. XXXI. NEW SERIES VOL. XXVI. 



SOME CHANGES IN THE SUMMER BIRD LIFE 

 AT DELAVAN, WISCONSIN 



BY N. HOLLISTER 



A recent three weeks' visit to Delavan, Wisconsin, 

 from July 7 to 26, 1919, gave me the first opportunity in 

 many years to compare the summer bird life of today in my 

 home county with that of twenty to thirty years ago. 

 From boyhood I had closely observed the birds in this reg- 

 ion, and my first journal begins in 1888. From 1891 until 

 1902 I was especially active as a collector of birds and was 

 almost daily in the field. I left Wisconsin early in 1902 

 and except for a brief visit in the summer of 1907, with no 

 opportunity for the observation of birds, my occasional 

 trips to Delavan have been at some other time than the 

 breeding season. 



Delavan is in southeastern Wisconsin, in a beautiful 

 country of varied physiography, with abundant streams 

 and lakes, forests, prairies, marshes, and farmland. It has 

 always been a most favorable region for bird life. 



My first impression, on this recent visit, was that 

 birds were more abundant than at the time of my main 

 ornithological activity in Wisconsin, and the three weeks 

 of excursions afield convinced me that this is true. Sev- 

 eral species, as summer residents, are conspicuously more 

 abundant now, and many others have held their own in 

 numbers. A few, on the other hand, have almost or com- 

 pletely disappeared from the region. 



One of the most notable cases of increase is that of the 



