24 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



the flock was to be seen. They were first found feeding on early cherries, in 

 an orchard situated along the steep bank of a creek, on the edge of rolling hills, 

 well covered with a thick growth of live oaks, which faced the orchard on the 

 east. To this thick cover they would fly, after filling themselves with cherries, 

 and rest till it was time to eat again. This they would keep up from daylight 

 to dark, coming and going singly all day, without any noise whatever being heard. 



Two men were kept busy shooting them as fast as they came into the trees 

 which lay on the side next to the oak-covered hills. * * * After the first 

 week, I found on going here (May 17), that dozens on dozens of the birds were 

 lying about. * * * Tanagers lay about everywhere, and no doubt many must 

 have flown off to die in the bushes or on the hillsides. * * * I noticed one 

 fact of the restriction of the tanagers to the orchards along the hill edges. None 

 were found, so to speak, in the larger orchards abouc the town of Hay ward. 

 * * * Mr. H. A. Gay lord, of Pasadena, Cal., in a letter under date of June 16, 

 1896, states that " they were seen singly from April 23 to May 1. From this 

 date up to May 5 their numbers were greatly increased, and by May 5 there was 

 an unusually large number of them. Then for about ten days, until May 16, 

 the great wave of migration was at its height. Tanagers were seen everywhere, 

 and noticed by everyone. After May 20 they decreased in numbers, and by 

 May 26 the last ones had left the valley." * * * He also says : " The damage 

 done to cherries in one orchard was so great that the sales of the fruit which 

 was left, did not balance the bills for poison and ammunition. The tanagers 

 lay all over the orchard, and were, so to speak, ' corded up ' by hundreds under 

 the trees." 



There must have been thousands of tanagers destroyed all through the path 

 of their movement along the State, as they worked their way to the breeding 

 grounds. 



Here are two accounts of this great flight of tanagers — one from 

 Pasadena, the other from Hay ward, 330 miles farther north as the 

 bird flies. The time taken by the tanagers in traversing this dis- 

 tance was only eight days, so it would appear that individual birds 

 did not spend much time in the same orchard. Such sporadic flights 

 are hard to account for. The tanagers are in California every year, 

 and every year they migrate to their nesting grounds in spring and 

 return in fall, but only at long intervals do they swarm in such 

 prodigious numbers. Evidently the migration ordinarily takes place 

 along the mountains where the birds are not noticed. It is possible 

 that in some years the mountain region lacks the requisite food, and 

 so the migrating birds are obliged to descend into the valleys. This 

 would seem to be the most plausible explanation of the occurrence — 

 that is, that the usual line of migration is along the Sierra Nevada, 

 but some years, owing to scarcity of food, or other cause, the flight 

 is forced farther west into the Coast Ranges, where the birds find 

 the ripening cherries. The damage done by this species, however, 

 is not confined exclusively to the rare occasions when they appear in 

 such extraordinary numbers. R. H. Carr, of Redlands, southern 

 California, wrote us in June, 1899 : 



Without examining any stomachs it is easy to report the value of the Louisi- 

 ana tanager to the fruit growers near here. In the city they seem to keep 



