LIST OF BIRDS FOUND BREEDING WITHIN THE CORPORATE 

 LIMITS OF MT. CARMEL, ILLINOIS. 



BY ROBERT RIDGWAY 



The writer's excuse for presenting this list is the circumstance 

 that it pertains to a locality which has yielded to careful, though 

 by no means protracted, exploration a decidedly large number of 

 species of birds (about 2S0, including subspecies), than has been re- 

 corded for any other equal area in North America, and the excep- 

 tionally large number of species (85) which have been found breed- 

 ing within the corporate limits of a moderately compact town 

 within the area in question. 



Large, however, as this number may appear in comparison 

 with records for other places, it is believed that many localities in 

 the Mississippi Valley presenting an equal variety of attractions for 

 birds will be found no less favored.* 



The town of Mount Carmel is situated upon a prominent bluff, 

 the highest part of which is said to be 140 feet above low-water 

 level of the Wabash River, and distant about a third, or perhaps 

 half a mile from the river itself, here 1,000 to 1,200 feet wide. The 

 river makes a bold sweep around two sides of the town, flowing 

 past the eastern, southeastern and southern portions, and the outline 

 of the bluff, upon which the town is built, conforms strictly to the 

 curve of the river. 



The land between the town and the river was originally cov- 

 ered with heavy forest, but more than half a century having elapsed 

 since the forest was felled, its place is now occupied by an open 

 common, carpeted with the richest sward of blue-grass and white 

 clover, beautifully relieved here and there by mirror-like ponds and 

 scattered clumps of trees, the latter mostly a second growth of 

 honey locust, black and sweet gum, persimmon, black walnut, syca- 



*Cf. "The Lower Wabash Valley, considered in its relation to the Faunal Districts of the 

 Eastern Region of North America; with a Synopsis of its Avian Fauna," in Proc. Boston 

 Soc. Nat. Hist. XVI. 1S74, pp. 304-332; also, several papers, by E. W. Nelson and the writer 

 in Bull. Nutt. Orn. CI '.,b ,' American NaturaliU / Bull. Essex In-t.; etc. 



