D ~— ArticteE X.—On the Numbers and Local Distribution of Illinois 
Land Birds of the Open Country in Winter, Spring, and Fall. By 
_ STEPHEN A. Forspes AND ALFRED O. Gross. 
; Probably nothing can seem further removed from the sources of 
- interest in ornithology which attract the general bird lover to an observa- 
tion and study of birds than a mass of statistical data concerning the 
_ numbers of the different species in different seasons, regions, and habi- 
tats; but with a sufficient exercise of the imagination one may translate 
this dull array of figures into a captivating vision of the actual bird life 
_ of the broad areas from which the data have been drawn—a vision which 
_ should add immensely to our conception of the significance of birds in 
. the life of the world and of their interest to the observer and the student 
_ of nature. We commonly think of a robin as one of a small, scattered 
_ group on a little part of a lawn, searching, with captivating grace and 
individuality of attitude and action, for the earthworms and insects of 
its breakfast menu; or of a single meadowlark as piping its lovely lay 
_ with generous abandon in the dewy morning from a fence post beside i: 
the meadow; but we may multiply our pleasure in the recollection a ¥ 
_ thousand fold if we can think at once of hundreds of thousands of each, re 
spread over a vast area, their numbers thickening here, diluted there, sf 
according to situation and circumstance, like a delicately shaded pig- Bi 
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_ ment used to paint a robin picture or a meadowlark picture of the State 
_ of Illinois. The reader of our papers must supply the colors, it is true, 
_ but that will be easy if he is a well-equipped colorist. It is ours to ~ 
show where and how and in what depth of tint they must be laid on to i 
_ make the picture as true as possible to the life of field and forest, thicket : 
and swamp, summer and winter, north and south, 
It has been our general plan to work at first with broad strokes of a 
the full brush, refining upon our neutral background by degrees and ie 
_ ending, as we hope to do in a paper following the present one, with the ; e 
final details for each species faken up separately and followed all over Be 
the state and around the year. This one time more, however, we must aes 
resume our method of blocking in the skeletal outlines and the basal agi 
features of the local ornithology, as intelligently as we can with some- 
what inadequate materials, leaving it to others to give life and finish to 
the sketch. watt 
| Tue WINTER Brirps a 
| In planning the presentation of the products of a partial survey of Ba 
_ the land birds of Illinois made in 1906, 1907, 1908, and 1909, it seemed : 
best that we should first discuss the species resident in the state in sum- a 
mer and in winter, respectively, following with the much more difficult ny 
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