34 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



for rearing its young, but that now it is increasing as the Nashville and 

 Chestnut-sided warblers have done before it. Furthermore, there can 

 be little doubt that nearly all the North Woods warblers which migrate 

 through New York in the early days of May have increased in numbers 

 since the colonial time. The author's experience in 1905 while studying 

 the bird life of the Mt Marcy district, illustrates these general conclusions. 

 Within the mature forest of the Adirondack Forest Reserve we found 

 very few warblers except the Blackburnian, Black-throated green and 

 Ovenbird, but as soon as we visited the slashings where the Mclntyre 

 Iron Company had cut off aU the large timber, and the extensive burnt 

 tracts in the vicinity of Elk lake, the ntunber of breeding warblers 

 immediately increased. This was especially noticeable in the case of such 

 warblers as the Chestnut-sided, Mourning, Magnolia and the Redstart. 

 The Black-poll warbler, which in this State is confined mostly to the stunted 

 spruces on higher slopes of the mountains, and the Myrtle warbler as 

 well, are favorably affected by the increase of low spruces which follows 

 the cutting of the larger timber of the mountain sides. What is true of 

 the warblers is also true of the Ruffed grouse in Canada and the North 

 Woods. This species is always known to increase when the mature forest 

 is cut off, and clearings and slashings spring up in various parts of the 

 forest tract. It is thus evident that the cutting of the forest, provided 

 the land is not entirely cleared and turned into cultivated field, is a boon 

 to most of the species which inhabit second growth of shrubbery or open 

 woodland, to which number must be assigned the greater portion of our 

 song and insectivorous birds. 



Draining of swamps and marshes. It is impossible to hold such 

 hopeful opinions in regard to the draining of swamps and marshes. The 

 marshland society is so closely confined to its own special habitat and 

 its conditions are so different from those of any other available habitat 

 that all those birds which nest in the marsh are surely exiled in any district 

 where the marshes are drained and turned into cultivated fields. A similar 

 statement could be made in regard to the extensive swamp lands which 



