56 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. 



tangled vegetation on the river front (PI. IV, fig. 1). Their liking 

 for fruit is well known, and it seems strange that they should pre- 

 fer winter-cured smilax berries to strawberries; yet of 13 individuals 

 collected at this time 5 had eaten smilax berries that had hung on 

 the bushes all winter. 



Cherries. — During cherry time 227 birds were collected, 23 of which, 

 comprising crows, crow blackbirds, catbirds, cedar birds, brown thrash- 

 ers, and kingbirds, had fed on cherries and little else. (!!herries ripen 

 from the 30th of May to the 15th of June and remain on the trees for 

 about a month. Some interesting field observations corroborated the 

 results of the examination. On the Bryan farm cherry trees are so 

 numerous that an observer can not keep track of the birds that fly to 

 them, but on the Hungerford farm, where the trees are few, there is no 

 difficulty in taking notes. One large black ox-heart tree in a hedge 

 row several hundred yards from the river was watched June 15, 1899. 

 From sunrise till sunset there was seldom an interval of ten minutes 

 when it was empty. Catbirds flew up to it from the matted vines 

 on the river front; thrashers came from inland thickets; and king- 

 birds flew over from apple and pear orchards. A flock of half a 

 dozen cedar birds every now and then came to it and fed eagerly, and 

 a crow made it a base of supplies for her greedy brood in a neighbor- 

 ing sycamore. The colony of crow blackbirds that had nested in the 

 adjacent dell were, however, the most regular and frequent visitors. 

 They had taken their recently fledged young to a swamp a quarter of a 

 mile awaj', and all day long flew back and forth in a ' bee line ' between 

 that and the cherry tree, often meeting one another in the journey and 

 sometimes numbering three or four in the tree at one time. 



As an experiment looking toward the possible protection of cherries, 

 a screech owl with a clipped wing was placed in a cherry tree near the 

 Brj'an farmhouse. Several catbirds that came to pillage made an out- 

 cry at first, but soon attacked the cherries, regardless of the owl. An 

 English sparrow, a red-eyed vireo, and two orchard orioles that entered 

 the tree were at first much disturbed, but were all eating cherries 

 within fifteen minutes. Since the screech owl does not feed on birds 

 to a considerable extent, they probably did not recognize in him a 

 dangerous enemy. The presence of a great horned owl or a Cooper 

 hawk would doubtless have had a completely deterrent effect. The 

 cherry crop at Marshall Hall is not marketed, nor is one hundredth 

 of it ever picked; the proportion consumed by birds is, consequently, 

 of no economic importance. 



Other orchard fruit. — When the cherry season was over the birds that 

 had shown themselves notably f rugivorous were expected to turn their 

 attention to the orchards of plums, peaches, pears, and apples. While 

 these fruits were ripe 161 birds were collected, but not one appeared 



