No. 4.] DECREASE OF BIRDS. 431 



cent decrease in warblers. IMr. Riifus H. Carr of Brockton 

 reports breeding black-and-white warblers, prairie warblers 

 and redstarts in about half their usual numbers, martins 

 gone, swifts comparativelj scarce, and the barn swallow the 

 only swallow commonly seen. 



]\Iost of the common birds appeared in about their usual 

 numbers in the migrations, but no considerable flight of the 

 warblers, . which nest mainly north of Massachusetts, was 

 reported. As in 1903, these warblers were again compara- 

 tively scarce in their migrations. The flight seemed very 

 light in Bristol, Plymouth and ^Middlesex counties, where I 

 watched it. Mr. Louis Cabot reports warblers as uncom- 

 mon at North-east Harbor, Me., but common at Grand 

 River, Can. This is a typical report ; but some few observ- 

 ers report birds generally as more numerous than in 1903. 

 Mr. Outram Bangs tells me that in Wareham, where, he 

 believes, all the tree swallows were killed by the storms in 

 1903, the nesting-boxes were occupied again in 1904 by this 

 species, probably by newcomers. Chimney swifts are re- 

 ported quite generally as absent, rare or reduced in numbers. 

 IVIr. Geo. E. lAliitehead of Millbury records that " upward of 

 five hundred " dead swifts were taken from a factory chimney 

 in that town in 1903 ; and that during the season of 1904 

 he watch(;d a large chimney formerly frequented by many 

 swifts, and never saw one enter it. In my own experience, 

 in parts of Bristol, Plymouth and Middlesex counties swifts 

 were either much reduced or rare locally throughout the 

 season until the flight in August, when they were seen in 

 numbers in some localities. At that time, one afternoon, I 

 saw about thirty birds in Billerica, which were more than 

 I had seen elsewhere; but the next morning only one was 

 seen. Messrs. William Brewster and Ralph Ilotl'man report 

 swifts as common in Cambridge and Belmont respectively. 



The birds had a good breeding season in 1904, and }n"obably 

 most species will soon recover from the check they received 

 by the June storms of 1903, except, perhaps, the purple 

 martins, which seem to have been almost absent from Mas- 

 sachusetts in the breeding season of 1904. Martins wen- 

 looked for in April as usual. A few birds were reported, 



