350 The Wilson Bulletin — Xo. 91 



A comparison of my findings with tlie book descriptions left no 

 doubt that I had seen the Bewick Wren and heard its song. So 

 far as I can learn this is also a new record for Geauga County. 



Orange Cook. 

 Chardou, Ohio. 



A BIRD STORY FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 



(Substantially as related to me by Nathaniel Heyward 

 of Oakley.) 



Scene : A rice plantation. Cast : Pickaninny, his mammy, crane 

 (Florida caerulea). moonshine (lonornis martinica). Business: 

 An ancient muzzle-loading musket of erratic tendencies, the ammu- 

 nition more dubious still. 



A small negro boy climbed one day to the top of the levee in front 

 of his cabin home. From this point he spied at the edge of the 

 locker bay a crane and a moonshine side by side. Pickaninny at 

 once crouched and skedaddled back down the slope to get the 

 always-loaded family musket. Now lie returned to the point of 

 vantage, Mammy lending moral support from the cabin door. Point- 

 ing the musket over the levee, Pickaninny took long and careful 

 aim, tlien pulled tlie trigger. Eventually the hammer snapped. 

 Mammy now encouraged him by shouting, "Hoi er steddy, son, til 

 she go off." During this interval the crane became vexed at moon- 

 shine and struck viciously at it with his beak. At last the musket 

 discharged with a resounding " pow " and the moonshine fell over 

 dead. " Dar," said the crane, "I done kill dat moonshine." 



W. L. M. 



BIRDS OF lin.j : TOO FEW AND TOO MANY. 



Somewhere in the Mississippi Valley some one must have found 

 the spring migration interesting. Thnt it was not so in northeast- 

 ern lov.'a seems to have been due to the Aveather coming in whole- 

 sale sized installments. March, with continuously too low temper- 

 atiire, followed l)y a dry April, with high south winds and summer 

 heat on several day.s, tended to hurry northward without loiterings 

 the i>iids due the last of March and during April. The imseason 

 aide w;irmtli of April was followed by a wintry May. Seemingly 

 as a result of these combinations very few of the birds that pass 

 to more northerly breeding ranges were seen. 



A c-omparison of the median dates for ten years of the first arri- 

 vals of twenty-four of our commonest birds with their dates for 

 1915 shows a retardation in the first ^half of the season, and an 

 acceleration in the second half, except ithat the Killdeer and the 



