24O Roberts, The Prothonotary Warbler in Minnesota. TuHy 



charm for the bird-lover, for these flooded dead-timber areas are 

 soon discovered to be the chosen homes of the very choicest of 

 the feathered tribes frequenting these parts. 



With this brief itinerary of our wanderings and general descrip- 

 tion of the topography of the country visited, the chief outcome 

 ■of these investigations may be stated at once. At all points 

 visited throughout this five hundred square miles of bottomland, 

 the Prothonotary Warbler was found to be a common summer 

 resident, and as we advanced southward toward the Iowa line it 

 became one of the most frequent and noticeable of the birds. 

 They were found only in the bottomland and apparently do not 

 pass up the heavily wooded deep ravines of the tributary rivers 

 and streams. Extensive examination throughout many miles of 

 several of these seemingly suitable valleys revealed not a single 

 bird of this species, and Dr. Hvoslef after years of observation 

 in the Root River Valley, between Lanesboro and the Mississippi 

 River, has never seen the bird thereabouts. At La Crescent 

 and Red Wing, where some attention was given to the upland 

 and bluffs, nothing was seen of these birds in such positions and, 

 common as they were in the broad valley below, they would inev- 

 itably have been entirely overlooked had not their chosen haunts, 

 to which they seemed to be so closely and persistently attached, 

 been invaded. The most northern point to which they appeared 

 to ascend in the valley was a short distance below Hastings 

 (about four miles), where a single individual was seen by Mr. 

 Dart, on July 4, 1898. This was about 44 45' north latitude, 

 and one hundred and thirty miles from the Iowa line by the river 

 valley, but only eighty-five miles in a direct southerly line. Thus 

 this species is quite generally distributed over an area one hun- 

 dred and thirty miles northwest and southeast and averaging 

 three miles in width, — in all about five hundred square miles, 

 which is divided, probably, about equally between Minnesota 

 and Wisconsin. A very low estimate per mile would show that 

 certainly several thousand Prothonotary Warblers pass the sum- 

 mer in this valley north of latitude 43 30', and that at least one 

 half of this number rear their young on Minnesota soil. Except 

 an indefinite record (probably a mistake in identity) for the 

 Heron Lake region there is no account of the occurrence of this 

 bird anywhere else in the State. 



