8 
southern part of the state, these northern and central trips covering 
11,198 acres (6,210.4 acres in northern and 4,987.87 in central Illinois). 
Orchards were much less numerous, especially in northern Illinois, than 
in the southern part of the state, the area of farm orchards covered 
aggregating only 3.69 acres for the northern and 14.14 for the central 
part of the state, the former .07 of 1 per cent. and the latter .3 of 1 
per cent. of the whole area on which the birds were determined and 
counted. These areas seem to us too small for detailed discussion, but 
a comparison of the observations made in them with those of the 84 
acres of southern Illinois gives us some interesting results. 
Consistently with what has already been said, the orchard birds 
were more than twice as numerous per square mile in central and 
northern Illinois orchards as in the more numerous and extensive farm 
orchards of the southern part of the state, averaging 6,246 to the mile 
in place of 2,969 in southern Illinois. This preponderance was mainly 
due, however, to the abundance of the English sparrow, which made 
more than 68 per cent. of the number of birds seen in orchards, instead 
of the 14.5 per cent. in southern Illinois. This is consistent with 
conclusions drawn from the midsummer observations of 1907, to the 
effect that the English sparrow diminished in numbers in that year from 
north to south.* Taking into account the native birds only, the ratios 
are 1,974 to the mile for the northern two-thirds of Illinois and 2,545 
for the southern third; and this, again, agrees with the statement of 
the paper just cited, that the native summer birds increased in num- 
ber from north to south in 1907. The larger number of the sparrow 
to the northward has also had the effect to reduce orchards to the 
second place on the list of situations preferred by birds, farm yards 
standing first. 
A Birp’s VIEW OF THE ORCHARD 
An orchard is to us essentially a tract of land set to fruit trees 
in regular rows—in southern Illinois almost entirely to apple, peach, or 
pear; but we have already seen evidence that to some of the birds 
inhabiting it the trees may be of secondary importance and perhaps 
of very little interest; and we shall fail to understand an orchard as a 
bird resort unless we view it with the eyes of a bird instead of those 
of a man. It was, in fact, very obvious that a well-kept orchard, in 
which the ground was free from tall grass or bushes, was a rather poor 
place for birds (see Plates 1 and 2) but that one in which grass and 
weeds grew freely, and especially one in which dewberries and other 
shrubs were abundant, was a situation preferred above all others. It is 
this kind of ground-cover and the trees taken together—the latter use- 
ful to some for nesting and to nearly all for shelter against storms and 
for refuge from their enemies—which make up a complete bird orchard, 
answering to the essential needs of the orchard birds of this discussion 
(Plates °3—6). 
* The Midsummer Bird Life of Illinois. Loe. cit., Vol. IX, pp, 373-385. 
{era 2 oer 
