° ■fgig J Eifrig, Birds of the Chicago Area. 523 



to me to be becoming one of the rarest of birds. I have seen none for 

 several years in the Chicago Area and next to none in various other locali- 

 ties visited by me. I hope there is a corresponding increase in their num- 

 bers elsewhere, but I am skeptical about it. The large, flourishing colony 

 at Addison, twenty miles west of Chicago, consisting of about fifty pairs, 

 has disappeared. 



Iridoprocne bicolor. Tree Sw t allow. 



Stelgidopteryx serripennis. Rough-winged Swallow. — June 10, 

 1915, I saw a pair of each of these species nesting in a dead cotton- 

 wood on the top of a dune at Millers. In each case the female looked out 

 of the hole and the male perched as close by as he could. The Tree 

 Swallow was formerly a common summer resident, but is now rare as such, 

 only common in migration. The latter is uncommon here, but becomes 

 abundant just a little south of us. Along the Kankakee River, I saw 

 about thirty, April 28, 1917. 



Bombycilla cedrorum. Cedar Waxwing. — This species is decidedly 

 on the increase in number in several parts of our region, notably in River 

 Forest and the Dunes. The last two years' many have been nesting in 

 Waller's Park, now called " Northwoods," here. 



Lanius ludovicianus migrans. Migrant Shrike. — The number of 

 birds of this species is deplorably declining here. When I first moved to 

 River Forest there was a pair nesting near my house yearly, but in the 

 last years I have seen none anywhere. In other regions I find the same 

 condition. There is a pair nesting yearly at Mineral Springs in the Dunes, 

 also at Addison, where it occupies the same hawthorn bush year after year. 



Protonotaria citrea. Prothonotary Warbler. — This handsome 

 species is extending its range northward along the Desplaines River. Sev- 

 eral years ago it was found nesting at Riverside by Mr. M. O. Schantz, and 

 since then it has been seen twice in River Forest, as on May 31, 1917. 

 On the Kankakee, sixty miles south, it is abundant. 



Dendroica caerulescens caerulescens. Black-throated Blue 

 Warbler. — In the spring of 1917 I did not see a single one of this 

 otherwise so common migrant. Other Warblers, such as the Blackburnian, 

 were almost equally rare. It was that extraordinarily cold spring, when we 

 had frosts till about the middle of June. I have no doubt whatever that 

 there must have been a great mortality that spring among Warblers, 

 Swallows and other purely insectivorous species, as in that memorable 

 spring of 1907, when conditions were similar over a large part of North 

 America. 



Dendroica p. palmarum. Palm Warbler. — In the same spring 

 this species was seen hereabouts till May 31, when five were still in my 

 garden. This Warbler seems to me to be increasing in numbers. 



Dendroica discolor. Prairie Warbler. — A very rare species here. 

 To the one recorded by Mr. Stoddard lately, I can add another, namely, 

 one seen by Dr. A. Lewy at Tremont, in the Dunes, July 19, 1916. 



Oporornis formosus. Kentucky Warbler. — Another exceedingly 



