INTRODUCTION 39 



September and October broke all records for heat and excep- 

 tional warmth. Those who supposed that our birds would 

 linger later than ever before were sadly deceived. The spring 

 migration of 1922 was concluded earlier than any other on 

 record. Perhaps the birds started nesting and finished breed- 

 ing earlier than usual. I was in Central Park almost every 

 day from August 9th to October 15th. I have never known 

 the summer residents to disappear so early, and in only one 

 previous year did the transients arrive earlier. It was aston- 

 ishing to see Myrtle Warblers in August one month ahead of 

 normal, to record all the early September transients in 

 August, and to break the arrival record of the Yellow Palm 

 Warbler on a blistering hot day in September, when I did not 

 see a single individual of twenty summer residents which I 

 might have expected to find in October. Oddly enough the 

 earlier migration referred to above was the fall of 1921, which 

 was also abnormally warm. Here perhaps the excessive 

 drought in northern New England and eastern Canada may 

 furnish a clue to the appearance of many transients and 

 winter visitants earlier than ever previously recorded. If 

 there seems to be some correspondence in the extreme seasons, 

 it is equally true that a normal spring migration is followed 

 by a normal fall migration, unless other exceptional factors 

 happen to exist. 



We may now turn our attention briefly to the bird-life of 

 the coast, where the situation is almost the reverse of what it 

 is inland. To my mind the dullest time of the year on the 

 coast is the period between the middle of September, when 

 the main southward movement of Shorebirds is over, until 

 cold weather in late October or early November. The 

 Scoters regularly arrive in this period, and individuals of other- 

 species are frequently recorded, but the main migration of the 

 winter waterfowl and seabirds does not take place until really 

 cold weather. As a result many species vary as much as two 

 months in the time of their appearance. A period of maxi- 



