32 



Bird-Land Echoes. 



make far briefer visits on their northward flight. It 

 is with them as with all other migratory birds : they 

 go as far south in autumn or north in spring as 

 they find their needs require, and then are quite 

 indifferent and irregular as to further progress. I 

 have been much amused at a stock phrase regarding 

 migrating birds in a recent "hand-book," that such 

 and such species winter *' from Virginia southward." 





W'^^ 



•li,«i;^ 



Many of these birds winter habitually and in num- 

 bers in Southern New Jersey. Now, a part of Vir- 

 ginia is farther north than the southernmost point of 

 New Jersey, so that the statement is rather indefinite ; 

 but, taking the coast-line, my point of observation is 

 fully one hundred and fifty miles north of the nearest 

 point in Virginia, and yet here, winter after winter, — 



