1 8 Oneida Historical Society. 



made by man, and I have therefore considered that any bird 

 recorded from an adjoining county might fairly be supposed 

 to occur in this. In one direction I have even extended the 

 limit to a second county.. This is in the case of the valley 

 of the West Canada Creek. This stream, which bounds- our 

 county for a short distance on the east, rises in Hamilton 

 county and flows southwesterly across the narrow county of 

 Herkimer before it reaches Oneida. As its fauna is directly 

 tributary to our county I have included it, as I did in the 

 original list, and to cover this extra-limital district, I call this 

 "An Annotated List of the Birds of Oneid^ County, N. Y., and 

 of the West Canada Creek Valley." 



This county has always been considered a most interesting 

 region in geological, botanical and ornithological investiga- 

 tion; and has been the chosen field of such distinguished 

 scientists as Dana and Walcott, the geologists. Gray, the 

 botanist, and Merriam, the ornithologist ; besides many others 

 only less distinguished, as Doctors Ralph and Haberer of our 

 own city. Alinost in the center of the State of New York, of 

 irregular outline, approaching in shape a heart, with one lobe 

 resting on Oneida Lake; the other in the great Adirondack 

 wilderness, and the point down in the head-waters of the Sus- 

 quehanna, a line drawn from the north, in a southerly direction 

 across the county, cuts outcropping of almost all the rocks, 

 from the Pre-Cambrian to the Middle Devonian. Such a field 

 for the geologist as does not exist elsewhere on the continent. 

 It is traversed from east to west by the broad and fertile valley 

 of the Mohawk and Wood Creek, and between them the old 

 "carry" of the early boatmen, the summit between the Hudson 

 and the Great Lakes, but so low a summit that the Barge 

 Canal is only 430 feet above the sea. From this valley the 

 land rises into gentle hills in both directions, only to fall away 

 again to the sources of the Black River on the North and of 

 the Chenango and the Unadilla on the south. The highest 

 land in the county is Tassel Hill, 1,944 feet; while the moun- 

 tains at the head-waters of the West Canada Creek have an 

 elevation of 3,047 feet. 



The county contains the sources of rivers flowing to all four 

 points of the compass — the Black River to the north and the 

 Oneida River to the west, both finding their way through the 



