56 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



clothed yellow birds, nuthatches, catbirds, even the purple finch 

 and scarlet tanager and golden [Baltimore] oriole and many 

 more beside." Captain Spinney finds "warm, cloudy nights, 

 very dark with little wind if any " the most favorable for a large 

 flight of birds at his lighthouse, or when the atmosphere has be- 

 come smok}^ from forest fires and there is a clear night with 

 light southwest wind ; but ' ' should rain or strong winds come 

 suddenly, all but a few individuals will leave at once, or settle 

 down on the ground." In foggy weather, he has rarely noted 

 birds about the light. 



Away from the coast, the main routes of migration are natur- 

 ally the north and south trending valleys. One has only to 

 spend a few weeks of late August and early September in a lo- 

 cality not in such a valley to realize how few birds are moving 

 through his territory in comparison with the hosts along the 

 large rivers. In the White Mountain valleys most of the small 

 birds, as warblers, kinglets, vireos and sparrows of various spe- 

 cies, sooner or later collect in the valley bottoms ; the robins 

 and cedar birds gather in large numbers about the wild cherry 

 trees by the river, and the bobolinks swarm over the weed- 

 grown fields. The main flight of swallows and nighthawks is 

 confined in great measure to the river basins, notwithstanding 

 the far roving habits of the birds, and apart from such localities 

 one sees but few of the migrants. A number of waterfowl seem 

 to pass down the Connecticut valley with more or less regulari- 

 ty, even such salt-water species as Scoters of three sorts. Old- 

 squaw and American Golden-eye Ducks-, Red-throated Loons, 

 Horned Grebes, and even an occasional cormorant {P. dilo- 

 phus). Bonaparte's Gulls often stray across the state in late 

 summer, and several species of sandpipers, as the I^east and 

 Semipalmated, migrate in numbers down the larger water 

 courses. Mr. William Brewster (:02) states his belief that 

 many of the Red-legged Black Ducks, such as occur in early 

 October at I^ake Umbagog, after leaving their breeding grounds 

 in the interior about Hudson's Bay, strike for the Atlantic coast 

 by the shortest possible route, thus crossing northern New Eng- 

 land in their passage. It would seem not improbable that other 



