32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



bling. There were more Kedstarts, too, which, are singularly- 

 rare in this region. Woodcocks were the new bird of this sum- 

 mer, two families in swamps about a mile apart being frequently 

 seen, though they were more resolute in refusing to be flushed 

 until you were about to put your foot in the tussock where they 

 were hiding, than even Woodcocks usually are. The varieties 

 listed this summer totaled at sixty-nine. 



Up to within fovir days of our leaving Buck Hill it had seemed 

 that the summer was to pass without our having any notable 

 experience with the birds. There had been the pleasant belief, 

 gradually deepening until certainty was reached, that there were 

 more Hermit Thrushes than there had been ; there was the 

 equal certainty that the Eave Swallows were greatly diminished, 

 the barn that bore fifty-one nests in 1905 having but three in 

 1909 ; and there had been the little spectacle, interesting, and, 

 to me, new, of seeing a Chipping Sparrow chase a female Cow- 

 bird on its every appearance one morning on our place, as, it is 

 said, so many European birds chase the Cuckoo. But there 

 had been nothing distinctive to the summer, only the old pleas- 

 ures, deepening with each experiencing. There had been a joy 

 in Robin song never known at home, for here manj'- Robins sing 

 as beautifully as Orchard Orioles. There had been eager drink- 

 ings-in of the ecstasies of the Solitary Vireo and marvelings at 

 the swift drivings of Doves over the high barrens. There had 

 been many things good ornithologically other than these, but 

 no bird hitherto \mmet recorded, no new song heard, no new 

 habit of old friends discovered, save perhaps the Chipping 

 Sparrow's behavior with the Cowbird. Nor was there to be any 

 experience startlingly new, but there was on Wednesday, Au- 

 gust 4, an afternoon's visit to a Cardinal swamp that brought 

 me face to face with a miniature warbler migration. 



It was about quarter after four that I came out of the dark- 

 ness of the rhododendron-thicketed tall swamp into the open 

 where the old -field white birches shivered in a light stir of wind. 

 I heard twitters and calls as I came into the strong sunlight. 

 For a week and more song had almost ceased. This afternoon 

 I had heard as yet but a Song Sparrow sing, and in several days 

 before only the Hermit Thrush and Chipping Sparrow and Tan- 



