4 OUR NATIVE BIRDS 



lards, pin-tails, and widgeons have maintained the bal- 

 ance, while the blue-winged teal and the ruddy duck 

 have increased. 



Robins have decreased on account of being shot by 

 farmers for depredation on berries. Bluebirds have 

 decreased 50 per cent. Mr. J. B. Bean, of Nicollet, 

 Minn., thinks that the great decrease in bluebirds is 

 due to the late spring snow storm of a few years ago, 

 when he found many bluebirds lying starved on the 

 snow. In the spring and summer of 1898, I travelled 

 from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of 

 Minnesota and found all kinds of birds everywhere very 

 numerous. I also saw more bluebirds than I had seen for 

 years. The only causes I can suggest for this decided 

 increase over previous years was a late spring with no 

 late night frosts. The late spring may have prevented 

 many birds from going farther north, and the absence of 

 late frosts would favor their nesting and the rearing of 

 the young. 



Birds will often decrease or disappear from one local- 

 ity and appear and increase in another locality. The 

 red-headed woodpecker has, for instance, disappeared 

 from some localities in St. Paul and appeared and in- 

 creased in others. In May, 1898, I saw the bird on 

 the open prairie, near a railroad track, five miles from 

 the nearest natural scrub timber. The farm groves in 

 that district are too young for woodpecker nests, but 

 the birds, no doubt, nested in telegraph poles. I have 

 found the same birds very numerous in burnt-over 

 regions, where they nested in fire-killed trees. It 



