Relation of Summer Birds to Western Adirondack Forest 401 



Another favorable circumstance is the scarcity of natural enemies, 

 — animals that prove a terror to small birds in the nesting 

 season, either by destroying the eggs and young in the nest or by 

 destruction of the young while helpless soon after leaving the nest. 

 Such enemies are now scarce in the Adirondack woods. Squirrels 

 are not very abundant, the lumbering of conifers having tended to 

 restrict their food. Harmful birds of prey, such as the Great Horned 

 Owl, the Goshawk, Cooper's Hawk, and the Sharp-shinned Hawk, 

 are comparatively scarce. Moreover, there is a dearth of other 

 birds that molest smaller and weaker ones, such as the Bronzed 

 Grackle. Cowbird, the Crow, Raven, Canada and Blue Jays and 

 the Shrike. There is also an absence of snakes, such as the black- 

 snake and the rattlesnake, the former of which especially is a dreaded 

 enemy of birds nesting on the ground or in low bushes. The mam- 

 mals that prey on nesting birds, but apparently are not common in 

 the region, include the weasel, skunk, mink and marten. More 

 numerous, however, are the white-footed mouse, chipmunk, red 

 squirrel, and especially the raccoon. 



HABITAT PREFERENCES OF FOREST BIRDS NEAR 

 CRANBERRY LAKE 



The Summer Camp of the State College of Forestry in 1916, as 

 now, was located at Barber Point, near the mouth of Sucker Brook, 

 on the southern shore of Cranberry Lake, New York. No public 

 road reaches the locality, for it has no regular inhabitants ; but it 

 has been cut over for lumber and half -obliterated wood roads lead 

 inland in various directions. The camp site is a level space of 

 perhaps four acres, about twenty feet above the ordinary level of 

 the lake, with a sandy soil, and extending back to the foot of a 

 rocky ridge. The " campus " is clear of bushes, but a few large 

 maples, beeches and birches have been left standing, and some white 

 pines and aspens grow along the brink of the lake; while the eastern 

 border is shielded by a fringe of mature trees and berry-bearing 

 shrubs. 



As my special purpose was to investigate the relations between 

 the forest and its birds, and as I knew that certain birds belonged to 

 one sort of place or set of conditions, and others to another, some 

 preferring marshy spots, others uplands, some confining themselves 

 to dense woodland and others to open sunny spaces, I thought it 

 would be useful to discover what varieties of situation existed in this 

 neighborhood ; and having found them to study each in detail as to 

 the conditions that seemed to attract their characteristic birds. After 

 an examination of the neighborhood, I considered the following 

 list of habitats worth separate treatment, as each seemed to present 

 some peculiar attraction for certain birds and to exert particular 

 influences upon them, — the birds in turn reacting on and tending 

 to modify their forest surroundings. My field notes were therefore 



