Vo1 - XXIVj Kopman, Bird Distribution. 177 



with profit on many occasions, and to which I have already referred. 

 The morning was quiet and gray, but about noon a warm south- 

 east breeze sprang up. The conditions of early summer seemed 

 about to settle down upon the country. The expectation of observ- 

 ing any unusual birds seemed small, as, in the light of all previous 

 experience, the weather was scarcely suitable for the movement of 

 late transients. Making my way over the route I had always been 

 accustomed to follow, I found only what I had expected, excepting 

 a few Tennessee Warblers at one spot on the edge of the woods. 

 On the edge of a large sugar plantation, lying at the usual limit 

 of my expeditions through these woods was some newly cleared 

 land, however, and in one place it was bordered by a rather varied 

 thicket that had grown up on the lighter, better drained soil. 

 Water oaks, low live oaks, honey locust, with some hackberry, 

 sycamore, dogwood (C. stricia), haw, etc., formed an open wood, 

 with brambles and other moderately thick undergrowth, forming 

 an ideal resort for birds, and not only most of the customary 

 species w T ere found here, but the following ten purely transient 

 forms : Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Yellow-throated 

 Vireo, Black-and-white Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Tennessee 

 Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, 

 Ovenbird, and Redstart. The thicket in which they were found 

 contained familiar trees of the region, but there was an obvious 

 difference between this spot and all the surrounding country. 

 The entire extent of the place was only an acre or so ; on two sides 

 it was bordered by cleared land, on a third by a brake of switch 

 cane, and on the fourth by an almost uninterrupted growth of 

 sweet gum, in itself an unusual circumstance for the delta region. 

 Whether this little association of species seen in the thicket was 

 making a sojourn of several days was impossible to decide posi- 

 tively, but the probabilities inclined that way, as the weather had 

 been stable for several days. The incident is unique in my 

 experience. 



Autumnal bird-life in the delta region is rather more varied on 

 the whole than is that found in spring. From the latter part of 

 July until November 1, transients of one species or another are 

 nearly always present in considerable numbers. In the earlier 

 part of the season the bulk of these birds are Kingbirds, Barn 



