ANALYTIC STUDY OF FAUNAL CHANGES. 155 
sixty or seventy years ago but are slowly diminishing at pres- 
E 
The blackbirds are also destructive and the bronzed 
grackles have diminished to a marked degree because farmers 
have shot them to protect crops. The bobolink and red-wing- 
ed blaekbird frequent swamps and marshes and as these have 
been drained the birds have diminished. On the other hand, 
the meadow lark is seldom seen far from well drain 
lands. The southern part of the State has changed from 
heavy forest to pasture and meadow and with the loss of the 
forests has come an increase of these birds. The orioles love 
the open woods and orchards and they have probably inereased 
rather than baie te 
majority of the sparrow family are also grass lovers. 
The dickeisscl first appeared in Franklin County between 1869 
and 1879 (Butler ’85), and there are records of its first ap- 
pearance in many other places. The grasshopper sparrow, 
vesper sparrow, lark sparrow, field sparrow and others must 
certainly have had the same history, as their habits make it 
impossible to believe that they were inhabitants of the greater 
part of southern Indiana a century ago, although now abun- 
dant in that region. The most recent intrusion of the prairie 
avifauna is the Harris sparrow, a species abundant on the 
plains west of the Mississippi, but first taken in this State 
at oa on May 4, 1907 (Butler, ’08), 
e gr aks, also members of the sparrow family, are 
frequenters of the wood rather than the meadow and are prob- 
ably diminishing. At least that is the writer's personal ob- 
servation with regard to the cardinal in southeastern Indiana. 
The same may be true of some other finches, as the fox spar- 
row and white-throated and white-crowned sparrows, but they 
are only migrants and the abundance would not be affected 
by changes of conditions in this State 
e grass-inhabiting sparrows have extended their range 
eastward, and in this State probably southward. The mock- 
ing bird has extended its range northward. The writer is 
uncertain whether this bird occurred about his former home 
in southern Indiana during the period ending with 1900, but 
he is under the impression that it was a aie summer resi- 
dent. It certainly was not common. During the Y wn six or 
eight years it has become very abundant. (Hahn, 'Ó b.) 
Mocking birds have also become more db at Bloom- 
ington and have been noted at many localities in the southern 
third of the State. The species has been an accidental visitor 
in all parts of the State and evidently is now occupying much 
of its former accidental range because conditions have changed 
in some way that has aes the struggle for existence. The 
