THE IRREGULAR MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS. 391 
for some inexplicable reason it did not inhabit the country imme- 
diately about Orange, for, although in the woods nearly every week 
for years, I never saw it until, after I had almost despaired of 
ever finding it, I did succeed in shooting a single specimen. This 
was in the fall; the next spring I sawa pair. In the summer, I 
went away ; and, after an absence of two years, returning to Or- 
ange, I strolled through the woods, my old hunting grounds, and, 
to my surprise, almost the first bird I saw was the great-crested 
flycatcher. Subsequently I scarcely ever took a walk through the 
woods, without seeing or hearing it. 
Now for what reason it had neglected quite an extensive range, 
in every way suited for its habits, and what impelled it so sud- 
denly to invade and occupy that region, I cannot possibly im- 
agine, as the woods had undergone but little change in that brief 
period and that little by no means prejudicial to its habits. 
The purple finch was another instance of the same character, 
though less striking, from its known erratic disposition. For three 
years, I never saw more than a single pair; then it made its ap- 
pearance during an unusually cold and stormy fall, in large num- 
bers, and after that, for several years it was a regular spring and 
autumn visitor, so that I came to look for it as regularly as the 
robin or fox sparrow. The pine finch, also erratic, I never saw 
at all, for five years; then it appeared in great numbers just before 
a severe winter, and thereafter, for a space of several years, it was 
a regular winter visitor, staying till late in March, and coming as 
regularly in mild seasons as in cold. 
In the time of Wilson, the redheaded woodpecker was one of the 
very commonest birds of the orchard and farm; and so abundant 
and familiar were they that, at the time of his writing his ac- 
Count of that bird, he says he knew of several nests within a few 
miles of Philadelphia. At the present day however, the redheaded 
Woodpecker is not a frequent bird in the vicinity of towns and 
Villages of the regions of which Wilson wrote. At Orange, I 
never saw more than a dozen individuals in any one year; and all 
of these, with very few exceptions, were young birds in the fall, 
found with few or no exceptions, on the edges of heavy timber, and 
never in orchards or anywhere near the outskirts of villages. I 
do not speak from very extended experience, but in the course of 
many pedestrian tours through northern New Jersey and southeast- 
ern New York, I never found this bird either common or familiar. 
