The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-06-09
THE BIRDS OF INDIANA.
A Study of the Various Feathered
Songsters of the HOOsier Forests.
The Numbers, Literature and MiGrations
of Indiana Birds-The "POints" in the
Character of Robin Redbrenst

Written for The journal by DR.. A W. Brayton.
Known to naturalists, there are about as
many species of birds as of fishes-about
10000 species of each. OF the birds OF the
world over 700 are found in North America,
and of these some 40 Species arranged in
213 genera and 10 orders, occur east of the
Mississippi and north of Tennessee and North
Carolina. About $50 are found in Indiana,
and of these over 1870 species breed in the
State Some 20 or 80 are constant residents,
as the quail, jay, woodpeckers song sparrow,
etc. Some twenty or more are winter visi-
tants from the north, as the great snowy owl,
Lapland longspur, snow-bird, crossbills, snow
bunting, Bohemian waxwing great northern
shrike, and the like. Others are summer
visitants-come north to celebrate in free
dom their hymeneal epoch and the SUMS
transit across the equator OF these we have
some forty or fifty Species
The greatest number are, however, spring
or fall migrants, stopping with us to rest
and feed few hours only on their way north
or south. Others are accidental visitors like
the European woodcock, sometimes taken
on our Atlantic coast, or an occasional
gypsy or bohemian specimen, from the
great West like the varied thrush of Ore
gon taken at Ipswich, Mass.
Most of our native birds are of the pas
serine order. We have, according to the au-
thorities, in our region some 81 species of
sparrows, "a warblers, thrushes,
g wrens, vireas 2 waxwings
2 shrikes, 10 "blackbirds," (including in
this family, the orchard and Baltimore
orioles and the meadow lark and boholink, }
j raven, crow, 1 maybe, 1 bluejay, fly
catchers, 8 owls, 10 hawks, . eagles (the gold
en- and American), 2Yultures (turkey-buz-
gard and carton crow, (mouring) dove, 1
(passenger) pigeon, turkey, 2 grouse (prairie
hen and ruffled grouse) quail, plovers, 2
stills, 5 phalaropes, "a snpes, sandpipers and
curlews Common woodcock Wilson's snipe,
jack snipe and spotted sandpiper are the best
KNOWN herons, 1 ibis, cranes, rails 3
gallinules 2 swans, geese, 20 ducks,
white pelican, 2 cormorants, gulls,
terms, 2 looms and 3 grebes.
One hundred and eighty different
species are known to breed in the north
western part of Indiana. The southern end
OF Lake Michigan Is fertile field Tor the
ornithologist. This region is midway be-
tween the wooded regions of the East, and
the treeless plains of the West; the warm
river bottoms of the south extend nearly to
the great lakes and these again invite north
ern water birds. We have, then. about the
south end of Lake Michigan, kind of four
corners where the birds of four different
regions intergrade. Lake county would
probably afford more species than any other
single locality in Indiana. In the same
region occur twenty-four summer species
not known to breed, and sixty nine
species only known to occur during the
spring and fall migrations while the list of
winter visitants and constant residents
amounts to seventy-six species, giving total
OF 279 species in one locality.