THE BIRDS OF SPRINGFIELD AND VICINITY. 5 



nut, Apios tuberosa, and several kinds of wild grass, all grow 

 along the river, furnishing food for various kinds of surface 

 feeding ducks. 



With all the reliable text books on New England birds, a 

 local list may seem to many uncalled for, but we sometimes 

 find bird life different in short distances. For instance, less than 

 fifty miles to the south and west of Springfield, there is a de- 

 cided change in Summer residents, in the latter direction 

 undoubtedly accounted for by reason of variation in altitude, 

 but in the former the reason is not so apparent, at least why 

 the difference should be so marked in so short a distance and 

 with practically the same flora, temperature, and altitude. 



To well know the bird fauna of any particular section of the 

 country, observations must extend over a series of years, and 

 this is particularly true of the water birds ; many of them are 

 very irregular in their appearance, and their visits here are 

 often short, owing to the absence of their favorite food, and in- 

 late years to the persistent manner in which they are driven 

 away. An observer near a river like the Connecticut, and 

 above tide water, by the latter part of Summer, can make 

 some reliable calculations as to the probabilities of the presence 

 of surface feeding ducks in the river, a month or two later. If 

 the rainfall has been heavy during the Summer, and the river 

 high, the vegetation along the shore will be destroyed, 

 or only have a stunted growth; thus their food supply 

 being scarce, if they stop here on their way South, they soon 

 pass on. When the Connecticut river is high and roily during 

 the time of their migration, none of the sea ducks make any 

 lengthy stay, it being so hard for them to find their food; and 

 few, if any, of the so-called* shore birds stop here when such 

 conditions prevail. In this list I have indicated the authority 

 for the occurrence of a bird here, if it is otherwise than from my 

 observation, and have only made a record when the evidence 

 was conclusive. I do not treat towns more than twenty-five 

 miles distant as being within the vicinity of Springfield. The 

 numbers prefixed to the names of the birds correspond with 

 those used in the check list adopted by the American Ornithol- 

 ogist Union, and with very few exceptions are those found in 

 Chapman's Hand-book of the Birds of Eastern North America. 



