Vol. XVIII 

 I go I 



^ Hov,'^, A Study of Macroyhampktis. jcy 



usually silent woods. They are not void of bird life, but the resi- 

 dent birds, if not excited, are not loud, and the winter guests from 

 northern lands are naturally very quiet among strangers in the 

 fremd. 



^ohpeos of the Tufted Tit are heard sometimes, but the species 

 does not seem to be so loud as farther north. Its cousin and com- 

 panion, the Carolina Chickadee, is also heard from time to time, 

 but the Woodpeckers, the Downy, the Hairy, and the Red-bellied, 

 do not say much, while the Sapsucker says still less. With the 

 exception of the Flicker, the Sapsucker is the most numerous of its 

 tribe, and you are just as likely to find him with the Kinglets and 

 Yellow-rumps in the magnolia of your garden, or with the Robins 

 and Cedar-birds in the hollies at the bayou, as in the deep pine 

 woods. Rather surprising at first is the presence of a bevy of Bob- 

 whites and a troop of Meadowlarks in the pine woods, but they 

 appear to feel themselves as much at home there as the Flicker in 

 the marsh or meadow. 



The bird fauna generally is quite varied in Louisiana at the first 

 of March, though migration from the south has not yet set in. Of 

 the species which regularly leave the State in winter only the 

 Martin has returned, but migration begins soon after and becomes 

 brisk by the middle of the month. 



A STUDY OF THE GENUS MACRORHAMPHUS. 



BY REGINALD HEBER HOWE, JR. 



Ever since Thomas Bell and George N. Lawrence in 1852, in 

 the ' Annals ' of the New York Lycevmi of Natural History' (Vol. V, 

 pp. 1-5), recognized that long- and short-billed forms of this genus 

 existed, ornithologists have either been loath (Coues, Birds of the 

 Northwest, p. 477) to accept the two forms, or have been puzzled 

 to identify many specimens in the collections. 



A month or two ago while examining some fifteen specimens of 

 this genus in search of a male Long-billed Dowitcher, the fact of 



