156 HOW TO STUDY BIRDS 



them, there are comparatively few which spend the 

 summer and breed in middle latitudes. The only 

 group which is well represented is the herons, and all 

 of those which occur at all are summer residents. 

 We have regularly the green, black-crowned night, 

 and great blue herons, also the American and least 

 bitterns. Look for the bitterns in reedy bogs, the 

 herons in wooded swamps or along shores. The 

 herons nest in trees or bushes, the bitterns on the 

 ground. In the South are many other species. Next 

 in numbers come the marsh-dwellers, a small group, 

 of which we have in summer the sora and Vir- 

 ginia rails, while from the Middle States south the 

 clapper and king rails and the Florida gallinule are 

 found. Of the shore-birds only the spotted sand- 

 piper, our familiar " teeter," is at all common as a 

 summer resident. The piping plover, kildeer, and 

 upland plover were once familiar residents, but now 

 they have almost disappeared. 



Of the swimming birds, only the dusky or " black " 

 duck and the wood duck are at all widely distributed 

 in the Eastern States, but by the prairie lakes and in 

 the sloughs of the western interior, a number of oth- 

 ers breed, as well as terns, grebes, gulls, coot, rails, 

 and some shore-birds, and, well to the north, cor- 

 morants and white pelicans. In the inland waters of 

 Maine and eastern Canada one may find breeding the 

 loon, the horned and pied-billed grebes, the goosander 

 and hooded merganser, and a few other ducks, and 

 on the coasts of these districts the herring gull, black 



