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634 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WESTERN AND EASTERN BIRDS. 
kinds begin to increase in a very marked degree. In the older 
settlements in Minnesota the song sparrow has already taken up 
his abode, and though something of his original shyness remains, 
yet it is rapidly wearing off, and he is becoming the same familiar, 
confiding bird as in the east. As we progress toward the frontiers, 
we find him becoming shyer and wilder, till in the wilderness he 
exhibits almost the wildness and timidity of a wild-duck. 
What has been said of the song sparrow, is equally true of the 
bluebird and robin. In Iowa, some of these birds breed in the 
timber near the streams, but the greater number pass quickly over 
the prairies, and find more congenial haunts amid the woods of 
central and northern Minnesota. The pine barrens seem exactly 
suited to the robin; here he raises his brood undisturbed; and, 
amid the dead and decaying poplars and tamaracks that cover 
miles upon miles of the surface of northern Minnesota, the blue- 
bird nests in great numbers. But very different are they from the 
robin and bluebird of the east. They fly from your approach afar 
off; they shun you as the hawk and crow do in New England; 
and though they have the appearance and voice of old friends, 
you cannot help feeling that they are old friends become estranged. 
But as-the country becomes settled, like the song sparrow, they 
soon perceive the advantage of dwelling in civilized society, and 
are not slow in acting upon it. In some portions of Iowa a 
Minnesota, these three birds are as domestic as in New York or 
Pennsylvania. 
Thus, the robin, bluebird, song sparrow, and some others of our 
birds, before the prairies were settled, passed the breeding season 
in the northern woods of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota; 
but as the wilderness becomes civilized, and groves of trees are 
planted upon the prairie, they take up their abode among the hab- 
itations of men, and become residents of regions, where before 
they were merely transient visitors. 
But if some birds are more timid in the newly settled parts of 
‘the prairies, with others it is precisely the reverse. In the towh 
in which I write —a city of five or six thousand inhabitants of ~ 
southern Iowa, — blue jays are as common in the trees lining the — 
streets as vireos among the elms of New Haven; crow blackbirds 
breed as familiarly in the gardens as chipping sparrows; while s 
almost any hour of the day, wild pigeons and doves may be seen 
gleaning in the busiest streets. On the upper Mississippi, nea? 
