aS Kop.max, Bt'> (/ Migration in the Lozver Miss. Viillev. Ff^n 



of the month and the last date has twice been set at May 2. The 

 Savanna Sparrow always remains until after the first of May, and 

 the last has been seen May 9. Like the Pipit, the Rusty Black- 

 bird has been seen as late as May 2, and small singing flocks have 

 been on hand at New Orleans until the very last week of April. 

 May 7, Andrew Allison has seen the last Water Thrush {Seiurus 

 noveboracensis) at New Orleans. It was with a week's wave of 

 warblers, thrushes, and a sprinkling of a few other species, nota- 

 bly the Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the White-crowned Sparrow. 

 The White-crowned Sparrows, four of which were seen May i, 

 were the only ones I have ever observed at New Orleans, and the 

 only ones I have seen in this latitude in spring. Noted a month 

 after the latest date I should have expected to find them, these 

 birds have always seemed to me remarkable instances of the ten- 

 dency towards retarded migration. The greatest of all the loiterers 

 are the Waders. Almost no date is too late for some of the species, 

 and it is doubtful whether all individuals of certain of the species 

 believed to breed only in the far North ever leave the region of the 

 Gulf Coast in summer. At Cameron, La., on the southwest coast 

 of Louisiana, I saw four or five Sanderlings on the beach June 30, 

 last. While the return of the waders to the lower Mississippi val- 

 ley begins very early, I am hardly disposed to believe that these 

 birds were returning migrants. Whether there had been any at 

 Cameron earlier in June I was unable to know, as I had not been 

 there before. The earliness of the fall migration in southern 

 Louisiana and Mississippi, however, is remarkable. Pectoral, 

 Solitary and Bartramian Sandpipers are almost certain to be back 

 by the middle of July, and other species return in quick successive 

 order. From the nature of their flight, however, the early return 

 of the waders is to be expected, but how are we to explain the 

 presence of the Black-throated Green Warbler in southern Missis- 

 sippi July 30 ? In 1897 I took one on that date, during a very heavy 

 migration at Beauvoir, Miss., on the Gulf Coast. Redstarts, 

 Black-and-White, Cerulean, Yellovv, and Prairie Warblers, which at 

 the most are very rare breeders in .southern Mississippi, the Red- 

 start certainly not breeding that far south, appeared in considerable 

 numbers at the same time and some had appeared two weeks or 

 more before. Aug. 11, the Water-Thrush (6". noveboracensis) fol- 



