iSSS.] General N'otes. A 9 7 



northward migration, but this spring the weather has been so unfavorable 

 that thej have been much tlelayed, the Warblers, especially, and have 

 suffered great loss of life. 



While it is usual to see miany of these birds passing from tree to tree in 

 the city, this spring on May 12 they were observed in great numbers scat- 

 tered over the ground in open lots, and on the larger prairies within the 

 city. Many were likewise noticed in the thronged thoroughfares in the 

 business part of the town where some were run down by passing vehicles, 

 and others met their death under the feet of pedestrians. They would 

 permit a close approach, but when almost stepped upon would make 

 a spasmodic effort to mount into the air, only to find themselves drop- 

 ping back to the ground again, helpless, weak, and benumbed by the cold. 

 This strange eflfect of the weather on the birds extended over many miles 

 of country and across Lake Michigan to the east. The shores between 

 Lake Forest, Evanston, and Chicago were bestrewn with lifeless birds 

 which had been washed up by the waves. 



Up to May 11 the weather, as recorded in my diarj', was very changeable 

 with spells of rain and cold. On that day it became bright, the mean 

 temperature of the twenty-four hours being about 70*^ F., wind N. W., 

 with a velocity of about sixteen miles an hour. This favorable day brought 

 with it the usual influx of migrants from the south. They were especially 

 numerous, flying all day, and at night the notes of Warblers were plainly 

 heard on the streets below. But May 12 a decided fall in the temperature 

 (the mean was 42" F.) with alternate cloudiness and sunshine, and a wind 

 blowing about twenty-four miles an hour caught the birds en route and 

 checked their further eftbrts to proceed north. On this day a few minutes' 

 observation on the ground in the nearest vacant lot or street would reveal 

 Black-and-yellow, Parula, Blackburnian, Chestnut-sided, Yellow-rumped, 

 Bay-breasted, and Black-throated Blue Warblers, with an occasional male 

 and female of the American Redstart, and to make the sight more pleasing 

 the gorgeously colored male of the Scarlet Tanager. Not satisfied with 

 such observations, on the next daj'. May 13, with the thermometer rang- 

 ing between 34-45° F., I made a trip of a few hours with Mr. H. K. Coale 

 to the south of the city where the houses are not built so closely, and 

 found the birds similarly distributed. 



With the exception of the White-bellied Swallow, which was seen flying 

 South in small flocks, and the Black-and-white Creeper which was noticed 

 engaged in its usual mission of cliinbing up the trunks of trees, the fol- 

 lowing birds were all noticed on the ground along our line of travel : 



Tyrannus tyrannus. Dendroica pensylvanica. 



Dendroica maculosa. Dendroica castanea. 



Setophaga ruticilla. Dendroica coronata. 



Sylvania pusilla. Melanerpes erythrocephalus. 



Dendroica virens. Regulus satrapa. 



Dendroica aestiva. Sialia sialis. 



Dendroica palmarum. Actitis macularia. 



