PH etew A De BrOUNe BU LD Erin 7 
Christmas census —— 1955 
THIs YEAR’S BIRD COUNT is being presented in tabular form. Tabulation of 
Census Reports is nothing new; some ornithological societies have been pub- 
lishing their censuses in this form for many years. But this is the first time 
we have tried it, and we would apprec.ate your comments and suggestions 
for future improvements. 
Making a table of the field reports provides several advantages. First of 
all, considerable space is saved over the older write-ups, in which the names 
of species were repeated over and over again. Since space in the Bulletin is 
limited, this economy is of first importance. Second, the results are easier to 
read, and it becomes much simpler to compare one area with another, and to 
total the counts. Finally — a future benefit — we will now be able to com- 
pare counts of a given year against totals of other years.’ 
The count this year continues to show an increase both in numbers of 
species and total individuals. We believe that this is due to a larger number 
of observers rather than an increased number of birds. We had 116 different 
species this year, in comparison with 107 in 1952; there were 103,393. in- 
dividual birds counted, in comparison with last year’s total of 41,584. We 
also had 24 census reports as against 22 a year ago. The mildness of the 
current winter is reflected by the appearance in our table of several birds 
that normally winter farther south. Also noteworthy are the records of 
some winter rarities: a Townsend’s solitaire, gyrfalcon, red crossbills, kitti- 
wake, red phalarope, and others. 
The tabulation is coded according to the area studied. Each code is a 
crude abbreviation of the area name, as Ar for Arboretum, J-P for Jasper- 
Pulaski, and so on. Where the same group covered the same area more than 
once during the census period, similar code identifications are used, as Ja*, 
Ja2*. Asterisks are used to indicate that a given area was covered more 
than once during the period; when results are totaled, only the largest 
single-day count for one species in the same area is considered. Data about 
the locality, weather, number of observers, etc. are summarized in the para- 
graphs immediately followee! 
rE ft Hel 
CODE: Ar*; Lisle, Dupage county; Morton Arboretum, and roads around 
the Arboretum. Dec. 27, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. SW wind, 20 to 30 mph. 
Temperature 32° at start, 38° at end; snow on most of the ground up to 
two inches; partly cloudy; 10 miles by auto, 5 miles on foot; group mostly 
together except for one hour when two places were covered at one time. 
Members of Evanston Bird Club, Chicago Ornithological Society, Illinois 
Audubon Society; 41 persons in all. — Karl E. Bartel, compiler. There is 
only one other record of the Townsend’s solitaire in our area — Birds of 
Illinois and Wisconsin, Cory; quoted from Birds of Northeastern Illinois, 
1876, p. 94. The record is that given by Mr. E. W. Nelson, who states: “A 
single specimen of this species was obtained Dec. 16, 1875, by Mr. Charles 
Douglas at Waukegan, Illinois. The bird was found in a sheltered ravine, 
