6 PiHek. ACU sD UTR ONG EB UP Eee 
Just outside the dining room window was a large feeding shelf, well 
supplied with seeds and suet, and very popular. Half a dozen species could 
be seen on the tray at one time, including two dozen individuals, and giving 
Mrs. Greenwalt great pleasure in studying their psychology as individuals. 
One of the common and most beautiful of the visitors at close range was the 
red-bellied woodpecker. Two or three squirrels would frequently visit the 
tray, but some of the smaller birds, particularly the chickadees, refused to 
be scared away. Once or twice a crow alighted low down in a nearby tree 
and looked longingly at the tray, but was never seen to come to it. 
The official list of birds on file at the refuge mentions 156 species. The 
list of those seen by me in the five days totaled 81. The subspecies when 
mentioned is the prevailing one for the region and no effort was made to 
identify it further as no collecting was done. The only birds seen by me 
not previously recorded in the refuge were the Baird’s sandpiper (of which 
I saw five in one flock), the great blue heron, and the Rio Grande meadow- 
lark. In the case of the great blue heron, their list states that their species 
is the Treganza blue heron. So far as I could see the bird was identical 
with our great blue, and I so reported it as the other diagnosis was based on 
regional probability only. 
Mr. Greenwalt tells me that the bird population, both as to species and 
individuals, is greatly augmented in the winter. I hate to think of what a 
job it would be to identify them in the field in that plumage phase and 
where both eastern and western species meet, but it would certainly be 
interesting to try. 
Chicago, Illinois. 
FL ft a 
A Naturalist on the Move* 
By VERNA R. JOHNSTON 
LEAVING THE WET floodplains of Arkansas, we traveled across central Texas 
to Parker State Park, a restored fort of Indian war days and one with an 
unusual story behind it. Parker’s fort was originally erected on this site 
by Elder John Parker and his religious colony in 1834. On May 19, 1836, 
the fort was attacked by Comanche and Kiowa Indians who massacred all 
the men and captured the women. The only man to escape was one Seth 
Bates, who was hoeing a field two miles from the fort when the attack came 
and got away. Young Cynthia Ann Parker (9 years old) was among the 
women taken captive. She was reared by the Indians who took over the 
fort, and later married the Indian chief and had two children. In 1860 a 
group of white men recaptured the fort, but Cynthia, thoroughly Indian in 
all her customs, chose to remain with her tribe wherever they were forced 
to live. The fort has since been restored and now consists of rows of log 
cabins inside a log stockade. We discovered in some of the cabins the Indian 
*Miss Johnston continues her description of a five-week research trip through the 
southeastern states. The concluding portion of her story, the first installment of which 
appeared in our September issue, will be given in the March, 1945, number of the Bulletin. 
