No. 4.] OKSTRUCTION OF BIRDS. 495 



When I was there in Mareh they were all gone. IVIr. 

 M()sh(U' says it is reported that they have nearly all died in 

 \Vest[)()rt, and T have not seen a sinijle bird in any of the 

 towns visited to this date, March 25, althoiiah the first tlii;ht 

 of fox s})arr()\vs, robins, bluebirds and red-wini>-ed bhu;kbii-(ls 

 has gone. 



Flickers are usuall}^ common in wintcsr in southern Plym- 

 outii, Barnstable and Bristol counties. They were as j)lenty 

 as usual in Decemlicr, but disappeared in January and Feb- 

 ruary. jNfr. Tiidvham estimates the mortaiitj^ among them 

 as at least seventy-five per cent. I found very few anywhere 

 in February or INIarch except in northern Dartmouth. Here 

 a large crop of bayberries had enabled flickers and myrtle 

 Avarblers to live through the winter in more than normal 

 munbers, but the remains of several dead flickers were found, 

 l)erhaps killed by a pigeon hawk which was seen there. Mr. 

 McKechnie records the finding of a dead flicker in January. 



There is little by which we can measure the death rate 

 among the smaller birds. ~Mv. Ingalls, who has travelled 

 considerably over the State, reports the common winter l)irds 

 in nearl}^ normal numbers. My own experience indicates 

 that nearly all birds were scarce except where they were fed. 

 Man}" peojde were feeding them and they were attracted to 

 these feeding places, so that the}^ ai)peared at such })laces 

 to ])e in their normal numbers. Tn Feliruarv tiie only liird 

 I saw in the woods in central and western Massachusetts 

 was a lone crow. 



Birds were seen occasionally hy lumbermen, woodchop- 

 pers and teamsters. One man in Andierst stated that the 

 birds came to him when he was eating his lunch in the 

 woods, and that one tried to take the food from his hand. 

 Mr. Bailey found birds very scarce in north-eastern Massa- 

 chusetts, where he saw but one downy woodpecker, three 

 crows and one hawk during the winter. On February 15 

 he found two blue jays in a shed in North Billerica, so cold 

 they could not fly. He took them to the house and tried to 

 revive them, 'I'hey recovered sufficiently in a warm room 

 to fly a little, but were too weak to eat, and died before 

 1 P.M. of the same day. These birds were very much 



