Williamstown. The first three days were spent at Williamstown whence excursions were made for several miles in every direction. The surrounding country is hilly and well watered, but sparsely timbered, most of the land being under cultivation. In its general features it resembles portions of Worcester County, but the neighboring mountains are of course very much higher than any in Eastern Massachusetts; indeed. Mt. Graylock, which lies only four miles to the eastward of the town, is the highest point in the State, having an elevation of 3500 feet.
The woods are composed chiefly of beeches, rock maples, chestnuts, paper and yellow birches, white pines and hemlocks; with sycamores, Balm-of-Gilead poplars, red maples, elms, and hornbeams (Carpinus americana) along the streams. There are no firs and few spruces except on the mountains.
The bird fauna. to my surprise, proved to be not only strictly Alleghanian, but actually identical. save in the apparent absence of two or three species, with that of many parts of Middlesex County, in Eastern Massachusetts. Thus there were Bluebirds. House Wrens, Yellow Warblers. Warbling and Yellow-throated Vireos, Cedar Birds. Purple Martins, Cliff, Barn, and White- bellied Swallows, Purple Finches. Goldfinches. Song Sparrows. Baltimore Orioles, Crow Blackbirds. Kingbirds. Wood Pewees, Least Flycatchers, and Golden-winged Woodpeckers about the cultivated grounds and orchards; Chickadees, Black-and-White Creepers. Ovenbirds, Redstarts, Wood Pewees, and Red-eyed Vireos in the woodlands: Savanna Sparrows, Bobolinks, Meadow Larks (not common), and Red-winged Blackbirds on the meadows and broad, grassy intervale farms; Wilson's Thrush- es. Catbirds, Maryland Yellow-throats, and Chestnut-sided Warblers in the thickets along water courses: Grass Finches. Field Sparrows, and Indigo Birds on the rocky hillside pastures; and Robins, Crows, and Bridge Pewees nearly everywhere. Among the species apparently absent but to be expected[1] in such company, may be mentioned the Wood Thrush. Brown Thrasher. Nashville Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, and Swamp Sparrow. Several of these, as well as others which might be included in the same category, were observed only a few miles distant, but in lo-
- ↑ Several farmers told me that the Quail (Ortyx virginiana) formerly occurred in small numbers, but I have no positive proof of this.
