264 . ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM THE WEST. 
as may be supposed to interest the ornithologieal readers of the 
NATURALIST, reserving a more detailed and formal report for 
publication elsewhere.* i 
Leavenworth, Kansas, was the point at which we co 
our labors. During the ten days spent at this locality we col- 
lected or observed nearly one hundred species of birds. Althou : 
we arrived here May 2d, the country wore the aspect of a New 
England June. The prairies were already green with waving 
grass and the forests were nearly in full leaf. The apple trees — 
were some days out of bloom, and the young cherries were as — 
large as very large peas; the vegetation being fully a month in 3 
advance of its usual stage in Southern New England at the same 
date. Comparatively few of the birds, however, were nesting; 7 
some had not arrived from the South, and others whose breeding - 
stations were more to the northward still lingered. a 
We found in the vicinity of Leavenworth a collector’s paradise, . 
the forests of the Missouri bottom-lands literally swarming W 
birds, many of which none of the party had before seen ae 
the general aspect of the ornithological fauna being strikingly 
_ diverse from that of the northeastern states. The red-headed ste 
red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus and Centris 
Carolinus) revelled among the grand old elms and cottonwoods 
of the bottom-lands, some of which tower to the height of on 
hundred to one hundred and fifty feet. The golden-shafted fiche 
(Colaptes auratus) was almost equally abundant, and showed itè 
close affinity with its red-shafted brother of the mountains - 
the Pacific Slope (O. Mexicanus) by already frequently pres® e 
touches of red in its black check patches. Although the haity p i 
downy woodpeckers (Picus villosus and P. pubescens) were” 
served, they seemed by no means common. The crest” i 
(Lophophanes bicolor) and the merry cardinal ( Cardinalis PA 
anus) vied with each other in their noisy demonstrations, © 
ing exceedingly abundant and garrulous. Their vocab p 
inexhaustible, as they every day astonished us with "u ith 
which we often at first supposed to proceed from some ©” 
_ erto unknown to us. The blue jay (Cyanura cristata) we 
*This report will embrace annotated faunal lists for eight locali ios 
nary list for the whole. Mr. C. W t accompanied the jally the fo 
dermist, and Mr. Richard Bliss as ichthyologist, both of whom, espe" — 
greatly aided in the ornithological work. 
