﻿FIELD ANT i FOREST. 



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greatly exceeding this freight, occur here ;ind there, one havihig lieen 

 cut in Posey County, Indiana, measuring one hundred and thirty feet, 

 while the trunk alone produced eight seven foot post "cuts," — being 

 thus about sixty feet "in the clear," — while the diameter was about 

 four feet. In Professor Cox's Geological Report of Indiana, for the 

 year 1873, Catalpas are mentioned, in the enumeration of the timber 

 trees characteristic of certain counties of that State, which have the 

 following size: At Owensville, (Gibson County,) trees of nine to 

 twelve feet in circumference were measured. In Knox County, near 

 Ha/.elton, in the White River bottoms, Catalpas of two and a half to 

 three feet in diameter were common, while one of four and a half 

 feet was measured. At Oakland, in the same county, another tree 

 was four feet in diameter. 



The rate of growth of this species seems to be very fast, judging from 

 a statement made by Mr. James E. Baker, Surveyor of Knox County, 

 in the report above cited, to the effect that a Catalpa of twenty-five 

 inches diameter exhibited but thirty-seven annual rings of growth, 

 "indicating an increase of size, during a third of a century, of more 

 than six-sevenths of an inch per annum." 



The appearance of this tree when bare of foliage is crooked and 

 scraggy, but when clad with its dense canopy of large heart-shaped 

 leaves, it is unquestionably the most luxuriant and tropical looking 

 tree of the forest. The size and peculiarly bright, light, yellowish 

 green color of the leaves render this tree conspicuous among all its as- 

 sociates, and when bedecked in its pyramidal masses of beautiful blos- 

 soms, few trees of any land far surpass it in beauty. But it presents its 

 most striking appearance when the flowers are replaced by the long, 

 cylindrical seed-pods, which, hanging pendant from underneath the 

 banks of imbricated leaves, have always reminded me of little rills 

 trickling from mossy ledges. 



Robert Ridgway. 



Notes on Forster's Tern. 



Sterna forsteri, Nutt. 



Among the few terns which are occasionally seen in the District in 

 the late Summer and early fall months may be mentioned Sterna fas- 

 ten, which is now, for the first time, added to the birds of the District 



