FIELD AND STUDY 



The robins cover a very wide area, as do the 

 song sparrows, the kingbirds, the vireos, the flickers, 

 the orioles, the catbirds, and others. The area cov- 

 ered by the bobolinks is fast becoming less and less, 

 or at least it is moving farther and farther north. 

 Bobolinks in New York State meadows are becom- 

 ing rare birds, but in Canadian meadows they ap- 

 pear to be on the increase. The mowing-macLine 

 and the earlier gathering of the hay-crop by ten or 

 fourteen days than fifty years ago probably ac- 

 count for it. 



As the birds begin to arrive from the South in 

 the spring, the birds that have come down from the 

 North to spend the winter with us the crossbills, 

 the pine grosbeaks, the pine linnets, the red-breasted 

 nuthatches, the juncos, and the snow buntings 

 begin to withdraw. The ebb of one species follows 

 the flow of another. One winter, in December, a 

 solitary red-breasted nuthatch took up his abode 

 with me, attracted by the suet and nuts I had 

 placed on a maple-tree-trunk in front of my study 

 window for the downy woodpecker, the chickadees, 

 and the native nuthatches. Red-breast evidently 

 said to himself, "Needless to look farther." He 

 took lodgings in a wren-box on a post near by, and 

 at night and during windy, stormy days was securely 

 housed there. He tarried till April, and his constancy, 

 his pretty form, and his engaging ways greatly en- 

 deared him to us. The pair of white-breasted nut- 



