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ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 9-No. 9 



dreds and thousands of them, but there was 

 no perceptible diminution in their numbers. 

 A count on one night showed that two 

 thousand one hundred and ten birds had 

 fallen before the deadly sticks, and on 

 other nights the total was much higher. 

 The birds came from all directions and 

 many from great distances. 



As if disliking their winter quarters, the 

 Robins pushed north at the first breath of 

 warm weather. Regardless of the certainty 

 of being overtaken by late spells of cold, 

 they hurried on, from January 31 to Feb- 

 ruary 3, and occupied all the country from 

 which they had been driven the first of the 

 year. This movement was of course con- 

 fined to comparatively few individuals, and 

 while the scouts had advanced to 39° or 

 even a little farther north — single birds be- 

 ing seen at Burlington, la., 40 50 , and at 

 Lake Mills, 43 06 , — the main body still re- 

 mained in camp three or four hundred miles 

 to the south. Then occurred a whole 

 month of waiting, during which adventur- 

 ous birds pressed northward only to be 

 driven back by snow and ice ; nor was the 

 real advance commenced until March 9. 

 From that date until they had passed over 

 our northern boundary their advance was 

 constant and more or less uniform. The 

 regular advance of the van appears to have 

 been as follows : From March 9 to March 

 15, they spread over Illinois and Eastern 

 Nebraska to latitude 41 51 ; on the 1 6th a 

 slight advance in Iowa ; 17th and 18th no 

 record ; 19th and 20th an advance in Iowa, 

 Illinois and Wisconsin, but not in Ne- 

 braska, to latitude 43°; 21st a sudden 

 spreading over "Wisconsin to latitude 45°. 

 By March 24, the rest of the stations in 

 Wisconsin had reported and an equal ad- 

 vance had taken place in Minnesota, so 

 that by this date the van was at 45° all 

 along the line. North of here all the 

 stations are in the valley of the Red River 

 of the north. In this part the first arrivals 

 reached latitude 47° on April 3, and just 

 one week later appeared at Oak Point, 

 Manitoba, 50 30 . 



The fact that spring migration on the 

 western plains is several days behind mi- 

 gration in the same latitude farther east, is 

 clearly shown by the record of the Robin. 

 At Ellis, Kan., 38 55 , the first one came 

 March 21 ; in Illinois it reached that lati- 

 tude six weeks earlier ; at Menoken, Dak., 

 46 5S , on April 29, east of there at Frazee 

 City, Minn., 46 33 , came on April 3. While 

 at Larimore, Dak., 47 52 , high bleak situa- 

 tion answers to a western position and the 

 Robins did not come until April 21. 



The bulk of the species travelled much 

 behind these advance guards in the lower 

 part of the course, but moving faster than 

 the scouts, by the time the end of the 

 march was reached it was but a few days in 

 the rear. It reached 39° from March 12 

 to 17, then moved to 43° on March 23 and 

 24 ; to 45 30 by March 27 and 28, and to 

 47° on April 5. 



From the few scattered notes on the 

 subject, we may guess that the bulk left 

 35° on March 7; 37° ,'on March 25; 39° 

 on March 31, and 41° on April 10. By 

 the middle of April in all the country 

 south of 43°, all Robins had left those 

 places where they did not intend to breed 

 and at the other rjlaces, had settled down 

 to summer members. 



Yellow-kumped Wabblek, (Dendrceca 

 coronta). The hardiest Warbler of all is 

 the Yellow-rump ; it stands a temperature 

 of twenty degrees below zero with no ap- 

 parent inconvenience; give it plenty of 

 Poison Ivy berries to eat and it does not 

 care how the mercury stands. Along lati- 

 tude 39°, it usually winters almost every 

 where, but the unusually severe weather of 

 the first week in January, drove it south- 

 ward from all but the most favorable 

 localities. About twenty birds remained 

 through January at St. Louis, and not 

 quite so many at Manhattan, Kan. It was 

 not until the middle of March that the 

 northward movement commenced ; this was 

 marked at Caddo, Ind. Ter., by the return 

 of the birds from the bottom lands whither 



