Notes from Field and Study 



247 



in the least excited when I stood very near 

 it. 



The young birds grew fast and soon 

 began to look like their mother. Then, 

 one day, I looked into the nest and, lo, 

 it was empty! It was so sudden that I 

 thought a cat must have eaten them. I 

 listened and heard the short chip of the 

 Cardinals, which usually means that 

 something is wrong. I followed the sound 

 to a clump of bushes, and, on a very low 

 branch, I saw the baby birds. The parents 

 were teaching them to fly. I stood near 

 and watched, quietly. The male would 

 fly to a low branch and the female stood 

 by and tried to urge the little ones to 

 try it too. This was repeated again and 

 again. 



It grew dark and I could not watch 

 them any longer, but the next afternoon 

 we saw the male and female with the three 

 little ones and they could fly. 



So ended happily the history of our 

 Cardinals. 



I have three Wren-houses in the yard. 



This spring, on May i, a pair of Wrens 

 began carrying sticks and straw to one of 

 the boxes. One morning I counted the 

 trips of the Wrens to and from the house 

 and they made on the average of five or six 

 a minute. 



After a while I noticed a pair in another 

 Wren-house. I discovered it was the same 

 pair. Had they deserted the first nest? 



1 watched. No, they still made frequent 

 trips to the first box. 



When there were two eggs in house No. 



2 a heavy storm beat upon the box and it 

 was blown to the ground. I opened the 

 box and found the two eggs crushed. 



The Wrens then were seen most fre- 

 quently in house No. i. Eggs were laid 

 and then I noticed the same pair of 

 Wrens building a nest in another box, 

 which I shall name house No. 3. Soon the 

 eggs in house No i hatched. The little 

 birds were tenderly cared for. House No. 



3 was never used any further than the 

 building of the nest. — Irene M. Her- 

 SCHLER, Worthington, Ohio. 



THE SEASON 



XIV. April 15 to June 15, 1919 



Boston Region. — A New England 

 spring, anticipated through a winter's sea- 

 son of cold, frequently proves a disappoint- 

 ment , and in many respects this was the case 

 in 1919. A remarkably mild winter was 

 succeeded in late April and most of May, 

 in eastern Massachusetts, by an unusual 

 succession of cold or rainy days with a 

 prevailingly east wind causing chilly and 

 cloudy weather. The April migrations, 

 well under way and even advanced for 

 the season in case of some species, were 

 abruptly checked by inclement days in 

 the latter half of the month, culminating in 

 a sharp freeze with a biting northerly gale 

 on April 25 that killed the tender shoots 

 of many trees already started. No doubt 

 many birds suffered from this, though exact 

 information is difiicult to obtain. A dead 

 Hermit Thrush, reported from one locality 



in southern New Hampshire, seemed to 

 have met its fate through exposure. The 

 usual flight of White-throated Sparrows, 

 due in late April,- was extremely small. A 

 few scattering birds were seen, one singing 

 feebly May 6, at Lexington, and a few up 

 to May sixteenth. A late Junco was twice 

 seen at Lexington, once on May 9 and 

 again on the isth, possibly a left-over 

 from the April flight. A flock of twelve 

 Red Crossbills stopped in some Norway 

 Spruces at the same locality on May 9, 

 perchance returning from the winter's 

 wanderings to the south. Pine Siskins were 

 more in evidence than usual at this season: 

 many small companies up to a dozen 

 individuals were of frequent occurrence till 

 May 18. A considerable flock of Evening 

 Grosbeaks (75 to 100 birds) reported as 

 wintering at Beverly Farms, was last 



