Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/339



This very abundant species I observed in East Florida, on the 1st of March 1831, in full summer plumage. In South Carolina, no improvement on its winter dress could be seen on the 18th of the same month. On the 10th of April, many were procured by my friend Bachman and myself, in the neighbourhood of Charleston. They were in moult, especially about the head and neck, where the new feathers were still inclosed in their sheath ; but so rapidly did the change take place, that, before a few days had elapsed, they were in full plumage.

During a winter spent in the Floridas, I saw these birds daily, and so had abundant opportunity of studying their manners. They were very social among themselves, skipped by day along the piazzas, balanced themselves in the air, opposite the sides of the houses, in search of spiders and insects, rambled among the low bushes of the gardens, and often dived among the large cabbage-leaves, where they searched for worms and larvse. At night they roosted on the branches of the orange trees, in the luxuriant groves so abundant in that country. Frequently, in the early part of warm mornings, I saw flocks of them fly off to sea until they were out of sight, and again observed their return to land about an hour after. This circumstance I considered as indicative of their desire to migrate, and as shewing that their journeys are performed by day.

In the beginning of May, I found them so abundant in Maine, that the skirts of the woods seemed alive with them. They appeared to be merely waiting for warmer weather, that they might resume their journey northwards. As we advanced towards Labrador, I observed them at every place where we happened to land. They were plentiful in the Magdaleine Islands ; and when we landed on the Labrador coast, they were among the first birds observed by our party.

As Professor of the Pictou University informed me, few breed in the province of Nova Scotia, nor had his sons, who are active collectors, ever found one of their nests in the vicinity of that town. I