DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS. 19 



BIRDS OF VARIED DISTRIBUTION. 



The distribution of the birds remaining to be mentioned can not be 

 so definite!}^ limited. Various gulls and ducks were present in the 

 river during the colder months. The least bittern, great blue heron, 

 little blue heron, little green heron, and sora rail occurred in the cala- 

 mus swamp (PL VII, fig. 1), and the little green heron was also noted 

 feeding all along the river (PL III, fig. 2). Woodcock were found 

 on Persimmon Branch near the river, and were observed at dusk 

 flying into adjacent cornfields. Sandpipers, usually the spotted, but 

 now and then the solitary, were to be seen, particularly at the mouth 

 of the hog-lot gully, teetering along the beach in twos and threes. 



Various species of hawks, including the broad- winged, red-tailed, 

 red-shouldered, marsh. Cooper, sharpshinned, and sparrow hawks, 

 occurred on the farm. One pair of Cooper hawks bred in the scrub 

 pines on the edge of lot 4. Broad- winged and red-shouldered hawks 

 built on the slope of the wooded hill that rises from the calamus 

 swamp (PL VII, fig. 2). Eagles frequently came over from Virginia, 

 and one established a post in a large tree on the bluff just below the 

 negro cabin. Ospreys sometimes passed the farm on fishing trips up 

 and down the river. Several pairs of great horned owls and screech 

 owls built in the woods above the calamus swamp (PL VII, fig. 2). 

 Turkey buzzards soared over the fields and often fed along the shore: 

 some nested beyond the farm in the chestnut stumps of a deep, 

 narrow gull}". 



Kingfishers, which bred in the sandy face of the bluff beyond the 

 farm, fished in the calamus swamp and along the river front. The 

 downy woodpecker foraged in all the fruit trees and nested in the 

 hog-lot gulh% at the river mouth of Persimmon Branch (see map, 

 PL II), and also in some of the most remote woodland. Flickers, 

 though breeding at Marshall Hall, were most numerous in spring 

 and fall, when thQj frequently fed in open fields with robins. Sap- 

 suckers were seen in various places during the colder half of the 

 year, very often in the apple orchard by the kitchen garden. The 

 red-headed woodpecker also occurred, but its distribution was very 

 erratic. Night-hawks sometimes appeared in the late afternoon, 

 circling after insects, and whip-poor-wills were frequently heard, 

 though seldom seen. Hummingbirds were seen in various places 

 about the farm dipping into the flowers of the trumpet creeper, 

 persimmon, and tobacco. One nest was discovered on a horizontal 

 bough on a red oak beside Persimmon Branch. Another was found 

 fastened to the limb of a box elder in front of the farmhouse. 



Two pairs of wood pewees nested in the kitchen garden and the 

 dooryard, and more than a dozen pairs bred in the recesses of the 

 woods. The great crested flycatcher habitually stayed in solitary 



