Page:Auk Volume 37-1920.djvu/116

 46. Cobb, Birds of the Catskills. LJan. MIDSUMMER BIRDS IN THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. BY STANLEY COBB, M.D. One hundred miles north of New York City the Catskill Moun- tains rise from the west shore of the Hudson River making a circu- lar uplift some 100 square miles in area. Near the little hamlet of Hardenburg on the Beaverkill stream I have spent the first part of July for several years. The altitude in this locality is from 2000 feet in the valleys to 3,800 feet at the summits of the round topped, but steep mountains which are covered with a dense second growth of hardwood succeeding the hemlock forest of sixty years ago. Remnants of these magnificent hemlocks can still be seen all through the woods, for when they were cut their bark was stripped off for the tanneries and the great trunks still lie rotting and moss covered in the damp shade, while the stumps — many of them three or four feet across — stand in the twilight of the forest among the slender second growth like mossy tombstones commemorating man's wastefulness. Add to this forest land a quantity of lively mountain brooks, many old clearings with ruined houses and decaying orchards, and occasional rough farms with sunny hillside pastures, and you have an ideal place for birds, especially warblers, finches, and thrushes. The most abundant bird in this locality, and the one which always seems to me typical of the old wood roads is the Slate-colored Junco. Here is his summer home, and along the "dug-ways" where the roads are cut into the hillsides, making steep fern covered and mossy banks, their nests are easily found. In one stretch of a half mile of road I have found as many as four, all in similar positions — under some root or fern clump in hollows dug into the little per- pendicular banks. In the first week of July most of the nests con- tained 4 eggs each, but by the twelfth they were nearly all hatched and offered excellent subjects for photography. It was not neces- sary to hide the camera for in less than an hour the mother bird would become so accustomed to it that she would feed her young within 24 inches of the shining lens without apparent fear. The