ALL TIMES FOR SHOOTING. 25 
steady work ; one bird new to a locality would repay a week’s 
search; a day is happily spent that shows me any bird that I 
never saw alive before. How then can you, with so much 
before you, keep out of the woods another minute? 
_ §16. Ati times are good times to go a-shooting ; but some 
are better than others. a. Time of year. In all temperate 
latitudes, the spring and fall—periods of migration with most 
birds—are the most profitable seasons for collecting. Not 
only are birds then most numerous, both as species and as 
individuals, and most active, so as to be the more readily found, 
but they include a far larger proportion of rare and valuable 
kinds. In every locality in this country the periodical visit- 
ants outnumber the permanent residents ; in most regions the 
number of regular migrants, that simply pass through in the 
spring and fall, equals or exceeds that of either of the sets of 
species that come from the south in spring to breed during the 
summer, or from the north to spend the winter. Far north, of 
course, on or near the limit of the vernal migration, where 
there are few if any migrants passing through, and where the 
winter birds are extremely few, nearly all the bird fauna is 
composed of ‘‘summer visitants ;” far south, in this country, 
the reverse is somewhat the case, though with many qualifica- 
tions. Between these extremes, what is conventionally known 
as ‘‘a season” means the period of the vernal or autumnal 
migration. For example, the body of birds present in the 
District of Columbia (where I collected for several years) in 
the two months from April 20th to May 20th, and from Sep- 
tember 10th to October 10th, is undoubtedly greater, as far as 
individuals are concerned, than the total number found there at 
all other seasons of the year together. As for species, the num- 
ber of migrants about equals that of summer visitants; the 
permanent residents equal the winter residents, both these being 
fewer than either of the first mentioned sets ; while the irregular 
visitors, or stragglers, that complete the bird fauna, are about, 
or rather less than, one-half as many as the species of either of 
the other categories. About Washington, therefore, I would 
