On the Migration of North American Birds. 89 



hooping crane ; yet all of these species of birds are numerous in Flor- 

 ida in winter.* 



Many birds make occasional and partial migrations only, to pro- 

 cure a supply of food. Thus, the common partridge, (Perdix Vir- 

 giniana,) in seasons when there is a scarcity of grain in New Jersey, 

 crosses the Delaware River, into Pennsylvania. The same has been 

 observed along the Susquehanna and Hudson. The flight of these 

 birds is so heavy, that they are seldom able to reach the opposite 

 shores on the wing, but drop into the water, when they are weary, 

 and swim across. This is also the case with that most delicious of 

 all birds, the wild turkey. Along the Ohio, Missouri, and Missis- 

 sippi rivers, numbers of these, in the seasons of a scarcity of their 

 accustomed food, cross those rivers, partly by flying, and then by 

 swimming, and in their wet and exhausted state are taken in great 

 numbers, either in the rivers, or as they arrive on the opposite shores. 

 The wild pigeon is another of those birds, that are supposed to be 

 driven among us only by the extreme cold of the north. This is a 

 mistake. These birds appear in Carolina, only at very long and 

 uncertain intervals. Sometimes they visit us in cold, but frequently 

 in mild winters. I have seen wild pigeons, in immense flocks, in 

 Canada, in the coldest winters, when the thermometer was below 

 zero. It is to be remarked, that the previous autumn had produced 

 an abundance of beech nuts and buckwheat, their favorite food, and 



* The following herons breed in Carolina, and all of them in communities with 

 the exception of the least bittern, {Ardea cxilis,) a rare species, which conceals its 

 nest among the rushes in fresh Mfater ponds, where it deposits three nearly white 

 eggs. Great heron, {Ardea Hcrodias.) Great white heron, (J.. Zii^e, Tem.) Snowy- 

 heron, {A. ca7ididissima.) Louisiana heron, (A. Ludoviciatia.) Yellow crowned 

 heron, {A. violacea.) Night heron, (A. nociicorax.) Blue crane or heron, {A. 

 coerulea.) The young of this species, are white until they are two years old. 

 Green heron, {A. virescens,) and least bittern, {A. exilis.) The American bittern, 

 (.4. mmor,) remains in our marshes during the spring, until about the 12th of May, 

 when it retires to its breeding places in the farthest north. The Ardea Pealii of 

 Bonaparte, as has been ascertained by Audubon, is the young of the Ardea rufescens 

 of Buffon. Having had living specimens in my possession for some time, I am en- 

 abled to state, that the downy feathers of the young, whilst in the nest, are brown — 

 the birds then continue white until the second year, when they assume a rufescent 

 color. They are found breeding in great numbers on the islands of the southern 

 extremity of Florida. In the same places are found also, the newly discovered 

 heron, (the largest of all our American species,) which Audubon describes under 

 the name oi Ardea occidentalis. The brown crane, {Grus Canadensis, of Temna. 

 and Bonaparte,) is undoubtedly the young of the great hooping crane, as I have as- 

 certained in a pair kept in confinement, which either in the second or third year 

 of their age assumed the form and plumage of the adult bird, the Grus Americana, 



Vol. XXX.— No. L ]2 



