Birds of Indiana. 5^9 



colder parts of the year, returning to the same breeding ground when 

 summer approaches! Unerringly they pursue long lines of migration, 

 as though following beaten paths, for thousands of miles. O'er river 

 and lake and sea, o'er marsh and mountain and meadow they fly. So 

 accurate is the chart, so true the compass of instinct, that each re- 

 turning annual pilgrimage brings the little wanderers to their former 

 homes. When the frosts touch the maple leaves and tinge the woods 

 with bright autumn colors we miss some of our little friends. Day 

 after day as the daylight grows shorter others follow where they led, 

 until, when the snows come, many of the summer songsters have left 

 us. These have sought the regions best suited to their condition in 

 winter, where the food supply is more abundant or more easily ob- 

 tained. Others from farther north have taken their places. These, 

 to us, are winter residents. To our friends farther northward they are 

 summer residents; between us there is a region where they are known 

 as migrants. Among these latter bids which spend a part or the 

 whole winter in our States are the Junco or Black Snow-bird, one form 

 of Shore-lark, Tree Sparrows, the Sapsuckcr or Yellow-bellied Wood- 

 pecker, rarely the White Snow-bird or Snowflake, the Snowy Owl and 

 the Bohemian Waxwing. Their summer homes are north of us. 



Some of the forms, perhaps most of them, which are with us the 

 whole year round arc not represented winter, spring, summer and au- 

 tumn by the same individuals. In winter the Song Sparrow among the 

 garden shrubbery or in the willow thickets are not particularly numer- 

 ous, but late in March and early in April a host of Song Sparrows have 

 appeared from the milder climate of Tennessee and neighboring States. 

 Their numbers are very noticeable, but they, with many, perhaps all, 

 of those who wintered with us, have passed on farther north. The 

 usual number remains to keep house, rear a family and cheer humanity 

 with their songs. With October those who spent their summers farther 

 north return, and, as the frosts succeed dews and snows succeed frost;-?, 

 they gradually pass by to favorite Avinter homes, leaving the individ- 

 uals we knew the past winter with their children, our companions 

 through the colder part of the year. The American Goldfinch that 

 ■ appears with the apple leaves in April in lemon-yellow dress with black 

 cap and wings, comes from the southland to replace other more hardy 

 relatives of his by the same name, who were hardly recognized by many 

 of us for the plain winter dress they wore. Well, they passed on north- 

 ward just a day or two before these brighter-appearing ones arrived 

 from the pine groves and cotton fields of the Southern States. Next 

 fall they will return with their bright colors deadened by the touch of 

 the north wind, but we will know them by their voices. 



34— Geoi>. 



