Bird-Lore's Twelfth Christmas Bird Census 



BIRD -LORE'S annual bird census will be taken as usual on Christmas 

 Day, or as near that date as circumstances will permit. Without wish- 

 ing to appear ungrateful to those contributors who have assisted in 

 making the census so remarkably successful, lack of space compels us to ask 

 each census-taker to send only one census. Much as we should like to print 

 all the records sent, we find it impossible to use two from the same person. 

 Reference to the February, 1901-1911, numbers of Bird-Lore will acquaint 

 one with the nature of the report of the day's hunt which we desire; but to 

 those to whom none of these issues are available, we may explain that such 

 reports should be headed by a brief statement of the character of the weather, 

 whether clear, cloudy, rainy, etc.; whether the ground is bare or snow-covered, 

 the direction and force of the wind, the temperature at the time of starting, 

 the hour of starting and of returning. Then should be given, in the order 

 of the A. O. U. 'Check-List,' a list of the species seen, with exactly, or approx- 

 imately, the number of individuals of each species recorded. A record should 

 read, therefore, somewhat as follows: 



Yonkers, N. Y. 8 a.m. to 12 m. Clear, ground bare; wind west, light; temp., 38°. 

 Herring Gull, 75. Total, — species, — individuals. — James Gates. 



These records will be published in the February issue of Bird-Lore, and 

 it is particularly requested that they be sent the editor (at the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York City) not later than December 28. 

 It will save the editor much clerical labor if the model here given and the order 

 of the A. O. U. Check-List be closely followed. 



Notes on Bird-Lore's Eleventh Christmas Census 



By FRANCIS H. ALLEN, West Roxbury. Mass. 



BIRD -LORE'S 1910 Christmas census records the presence of 

 Pine Grosbeaks, Redpolls, Pine Siskins, and Robins, with rather 

 interesting results, which may be summarized as follows: 

 Pine Grosbeaks are represented only scatteringly, as single birds, except for 

 one record of two, another of three, and another, at Spencer, Mass., of eleven. 

 Outside of the census, those I have happened to hear of in the neighborhood 

 of Boston have all been of single birds, I think. The only time I myself saw 

 the species in the season of 1910-11, it was a solitary bird. Mr. William 

 Brewster tells me he thinks it probable that, when the Pine Grosbeaks are 

 present only in such very small numbers, they are birds bred in near-by local- 

 ities, as in the White Mountains, rather than visitants from farther north. 



Redpolls were abundant in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, 

 Connecticut, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, and were 



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