the fall, but as a rule it lasts only a few days—it is a farewell their summer homes.
August is a most discouraging month to the student of birds. Birds leave their accustomed haunts and retire to secluded places to renew their worn plumages. They are silent and inactive, and therefore difficult to find. Late in the month they reappear clad in traveling costumes and ready for their southern journey. One by one they leave us, and there are days late in August and early in September when the woods are almost deserted of birds. Later the fall migration becomes continuous, and each night brings a host of new arrivals.
The spring migration is scarcely concluded before the fall migration begins. July 1st, Tree Swallows, which rarely nest near New York city, appear in numbers from the north and gather in immense flocks in our marshes. Later in the month they are joined by Bobolinks. Early in August the careful observer will detect occasional small nights of Warblers passing southward, and by September 10th the great southern march of the birds is well under way; it reaches its height between the 20th and last of the month, when most of the winter residents arrive, and from this time our bird life rapidly decreases. Some of the seed-and berry-eaters remain until driven southward by the cold weather in December. When they have gone our bird population is again reduced to the ever-present permanent residents and hardy winter visitants.
