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IX.— ON BIRDS OBSERVED IN AMELIA COUNTY, 

 VIRGINIA, BY PERCY E. FREKE. 



[Read, February 21st, 1881.] 



I HAVE lived altogether for six years in Virginia, about thirty 

 miles south of Kichmond, the capital, and during that time I have 

 carefully observed and noted the habits of the resident and 

 migratory birds of the district, verifying my observations, as far 

 as possible, hj securing specimens and preserving skins. The fact 

 with which I have been most struck is the apparent total absence 

 of so many species, which, from their known range, I consider 

 I ought to have met with, and the rarity of others which I ex- 

 pected to have found more numerous. The period during which 

 I have resided there, and the time and pains which I have given 

 to the subject, preclude the possibility of a species frequenting in 

 any numbers the district in which I have been working, without 

 my being aware of it. Some birds, certainly, I have noticed 

 which I have never been able to obtain, or to determine satisfac- 

 torily, and which are therefore omitted here ; but they are not 

 many. The distance at which I lived from the sea, or from any 

 large river, must account for the absence of the host of waders 

 and swimming birds, which a residence near the coast would 

 have added to my list ; but still, as there were two small rivers 

 with swamps and ponds in the vicinity, which I constantly and 

 carefully searched, I think I was justified in expecting a larger 

 number of species than appear in the following paper. I can 

 only suppose that many species having a widely extended range, 

 are yet within that range, but local in their distribution, and that 

 the district in which I lived was not a very favoured one in 

 this respect. 



To the study of migration I have given especial attention, 

 noting first arrivals and last appearances. In autumn I wrote a 

 list every evening of all the migratory birds I had observed 

 during the day, and noted how one by one the different species 

 disappeared. 



Many species become unusually numerous for a short time 

 before their departure, being reinforced, no doubt, by the northern 

 contingent on its way southward. Others, with which Virginia 



SciEN. Proc , K.D.S. Vol hi., Pt. hi. G 



