42 Bulletin No. 26. 



So much was encouraging. A walk of three miles along the beach 

 resulted in four records — American Herring and Bonaparte's Gulls, 

 Common Tern and Sharp-shinned Hawk. The hawk was wiping himself 

 after a bath, preparatory to a trip across the lake, and did not notice 

 that I was within a hundred feet of him. When I made a sudden move- 

 ment to attract his attention he began his journey without waiting for 

 breakfast. 



The half hour spent at a 12:30 luncheon was the first half hour of 

 sunshine of the day, and called forth a burst of song from several species 

 until then unrecorded, causing several others to feed in the tree-tops 

 just over the brow of the" bluff on which I sat. The list had now passed 

 the ninety mark, and I confess to a feeling of considerable nervousness 

 when the possibilities of not recording the remaining few necessary to 

 break the last year's record presented themselves. But the walk of two 

 miles to Oak Point, the place of swamps with their fringe of bushes, the 

 place of great expectations which had never before been disappointed, 

 swelled the list to ninety-seven with only six more to break the record, 

 and the swamp not touched yet. But " there 's mony a slip 'twixt the 

 cup and the lip ! " 



The tedious swamp beating began at once but apparently with poor 

 success. The mud was almost ooze and the vegetation so rank that it 

 seemed an almost hopeless task for one person to do any successful work. 

 But it had to be done. After an hour of this wading and floundering a 

 short period of rest followed by another hour of the same sort of work, 

 then a half hour of tree-top gazing in one of the coziest little nooks that 

 ever delighted an ornithologist's heart, where the warblers were swarm- 

 ing among the topmost branches. What a boon the eight power Bausch 

 & Lomb Zeiss proved among these tall, slender trees ! I lay at full length 

 upon the wet ground while the glasses bro't the tree-tops almost within 

 reach of my hand. There was no need of moving, for the birds trooped 

 by just fast enough for a careful survey of each one. The half hour of 

 this restful work was a good preparation for a little final wading in the 

 marshes, then two old orchards were ransacked for any overlooked 

 v/arblers, and the day's work was done. The five mile walk back to the 

 electric lines in the gloaming added nothing to the day's record. Before 

 starting homeward stock was taken of the species recorded, for before 

 entering the marshes I had exacted from myself a solemn promise that 

 I would not count the species recorded nor keep the number in mind 

 lest the real purpose of the work should be lost in the desire simply to 

 make the list larger than last year. The note book showed 112 species 



