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AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



BIRD SKETCHES FROM SOUTHERN KENTUCKY. 





By Sadie F. Peice. 



LONG the wooded banks of the winding and 

 picturesque Barren River may be found an 

 abundance and variety of bird-life scarcely excel- 

 led anywhere else. 



A short trip of two hours by steamboat to a 

 country residence in Warren County, and three 

 days spent in the woods near the river, boating 

 or wandering on the bluffs and densely wooded 

 banks and open fields adjacent, gave a note- 

 book of bird notes and a feast of musical notes 

 long to be remembered and treasured. Southern 

 Kentucky is rich in resident song birds and 

 favored by many migrant singers. The Mocking 

 bird, that "trim Shakespeare of the trees," often 

 remains through the winter, but comes in num- 

 bers about [the 8th of March, and at this time twenty could be 

 heard at once in the orchards and open woods. The Brown 

 Thrush or Thrasher, called by many common names, as "Sand" 

 or " Brown Mockingbird, " was vying with, if not surpassing, 

 the Mockingbird in melody. 



The clear rich, unrivalled call of the Wood Thrush, a summer 

 resident, was heard in the dense woods, while the Summer Red 

 bird and] the several singing Sparrows and Warblers were adding 

 to the chorus. 



That "scrap of sunset with a voice," the Baltimore Oriole, 

 with the near relative, the Orchard Oriole, added life and color 

 to the scene, and the clear penetrating "Pee-wit" and "Pee-r, 

 pee-r, pee-wee" of the Phoebe and Wood Pewee were heard at 

 different points up and down the strearn. The former build in 

 numbers at the cave entrances and on the shelving rocks and 

 bluffs overhanging the river, two and three nests were to be 

 seen together in a row, the same bird, no doubt, returning to 

 the old homestead, and adding a new apartment, so to speak, 

 to the one occupied last year. Groups of these may be seen all 

 over the rocks, and five, unspotted white eggs were in one. The 

 nest is a marvel of compactness, formed of mud, then grasses 

 finely woven and covered or decorated outside with tender green 

 mosses. 



The Wood Pewee too builds a nest equally as interesting, 



