4 OUR NATIVE BIRDS 
lards, pin-tails, and widgeons have maintained the bal- 
ance, while the blue-winged teal and the ruddy duck 
have increased. 
Robins have decreased on account of being shot by 
farmers for depredation on berries. Bluebirds have 
decreased 50 per cent. Mr. J. B. Bean, of Nicollet, 
Minn., thinks that the great decrease in bluebirds is 
due to the late spring snow storm of a few years ago, 
when he found many bluebirds lying starved on the 
snow. In the spring and summer of 1898, I travelled 
from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of 
Minnesota and found all kinds of birds everywhere very 
numerous. I also saw more bluebirds than I had seen for 
years. The only causes I can suggest for this decided 
increase over previous years was a late spring with no 
late night frosts. The late spring may have prevented 
many birds from going farther north, and the absence of 
late frosts would favor their nesting and the rearing of 
the young. 
Birds will often decrease or disappear from one local- 
ity and appear and increase in another locality. The 
red-headed woodpecker has, for instance, disappeared 
from some localities in St. Paul and appeared and in- 
creased in others. In May, 1898, I saw the bird on 
the open prairie, near a railroad track, five miles from 
the nearest natural scrub timber. The farm groves in 
that district are too young for woodpecker nests, but 
the birds, no doubt, nested in telegraph poles. I have 
found the same birds very numerous in burnt-over 
regions, where they nested in fire-killed trees. It 
