2o LooMis on Birds of C/iesfcr County, South Carolina. [January 



A FURTHER REVIEW OF THE AVIAN FAUNA OF 

 CHESTER COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. 



BY I.EVERETT M. EOOMIS. 



{Continued from Vol. VIII, p. 17 J.) 



OBSERVATIONS ON MIGRATIONS.* 



December a?id yanuary.— The migrations may scarcely be 

 said ever to be at a complete standstill in this region. Every 

 month of the year witnesses migratory movements. In Decem- 

 ber and January both northward and southward movements are 

 alternately manifested, each in turn obtaining the supremacy. 

 Toward the close of the latter month, if the season be favorable, 

 the former movement gains the ascendency, setting more steadily 

 northward. Temperature appears to be a controlling influence 

 a't this time of the year. Cold waves increase and warm ones di- 

 minish the abundance of some birds, especially those that winter 

 chiefly further north — the Prairie Horned Lark for example. f 

 Snow renders some birds particularly plentiful, others scarce; the 

 American Pipit being entirely driven away by it. With the un- 

 covering of the ground, however, it immediatelv reappears. After 

 mild weather it sometimes happens that the Pipit, in its move- 

 ments southward, waxes in numbers with cold, the severe waves 

 sending birds from further north, yet not driving the majority 

 south of us. The exceptional mildness of December, 1SS9, accel- 

 erated the progress northward. Birds that ordinarily winter 

 rather sparingly in the Upper Country, and more abundantly in 

 the Lower, gradLially appeared in larger numbers, the Mocking- 

 bird and Pine Warbler being notable instances. The Grass- 

 hopper Sparrow^ also made its appearance, and some of the com- 

 mon birds of winter became less numerous, the Red-tailed Hawk 

 almost wholly disappearing. In January there v\ ere feeble 

 movements from the north during cool spells, but there was no 

 perceptible diminution in the birds that had advanced from the 



*Read at the Ninth Congress of the American Ornithologists' Union. Nov. 18, 1891. 



+The previous portions of this article should be consulted where examples are cited 

 without statement of detail. 



