902 ' KEPORT or STATE GEOLOGIST. 



three busy, insect catching, and for the next two or three days they 

 continued from one to four in almost every tree. I never knew so 

 many birds of all species among the orchards as there were last spring. 

 They seemed busy all the time, and there must have been much insect 

 food and a great destruction of such forms. As it was, there was an 

 unusual abundance of insects left to damage the fruit. But little 

 late fruit, or fruit trees, escaped unharmed. What would have been 

 the destruction had not this innumerable army of insect-eating birds 

 thoroughly inspected and cleansed our trees from the earlier de- 

 stroyers ? 



They cross our southern border usually between April 15 and 25. 

 One advance straggler was reported from Ellsworth, Vigo County, 

 April 10, 1897. It was next seen April 16. The year 1889 there 

 were some of these birds that moved quite early. The first was re- 

 ported from Terre Haute, April 17; Oxford, 0., April 18; Waterloo, 

 April 18; Petersburg, Mich., April 19. The bulk of the birds were 

 detained, however, and they were not common until after they often 

 are in other years; 1888 was about an average of their first arrival. 

 The following are the dates reported: Brookville, April 22; Terre 

 Haute, April 24; Clinton County, April 25; Burlington and Waterloo, 

 each, April 26; Rochester, April 27; Cedar Lake, Lake County, April 

 28. A single specimen was reported from Ann Arbor, Mich., April 

 25, but it was not noted at Bay City, Mich., until May 5. As with 

 many other species, its movements begin to be slower as it approaches 

 the lower end of Lake Michigan. The earliest and latest date of first 

 arrival at Chicago, is April 27 and May 8, 1897. On the eastern side 

 of Michigan and Indiana, it arrives sooner. The earliest and latest 

 date of arrival at Petersburg, Mich., April 19 (1889), April 27 (1897). 



Prof. B. W. Evermann noted it at Bloomington the four years 

 ending 1887, as first arriving on April 20, 21, 20, 21, respectively. I 

 have never found it so regular at Brookville. The following dates of 

 first arrivals there for a series of years are of interest: 1881, April 25; 

 1882, May 3; 1883, April 26; 1884, April 27; 1885, April 23; 1886, 

 April 25; 1887, April 23; 1888, April 25; 1889, April 20; 1892, April 

 29; 1893, April 17; 1894, April 28; 1895, April 26; 1896, April 18; 

 1897, April 20. 



It usually becomes common, then, April 28-30, though in 1896 it 

 was common April 20. The males appear first, and the females arrive 

 about the time the species becomes common. With us, they, and the 

 Orchard Oriole, arrive close together, but by the time they reach 

 Michigan the last named form is behind. When they first arrive, the 

 males have a livety, attractive song. Nuttall gives it as "tshippe- 



