126 MARYLAND

ridges, Pigeons and Grouse, are the most
abundant land birds sought for food.

The middle states, says Morse, including
Virginia, appear to be the climates, in North
America, where the greatest number and va-
ricty of birds of passage celebrate their nup-
tuals and rear their offspring, with which they
annually return to more southern regions.—
Most of our birds are birds of passage from
the southward. The eagle, the pheasant, grouse
and partridge of Pennsylvania, several species
of woodpeckers, and crows, blue jay, robin,
marsh hen, several species of sparrows or
snow birds, and the swallow, are perhaps
nearly all the land birds that continue the year
round to the north of Virginia.

Very few tribes of birds build or rear their
young in the south or maritime parts of Vir-
ginia, in Carolina, Georgia and Florida; yet
all those numerous tribes, particularly of the
soft billed kind which breed in Pennsylvania,
pass, in the spring season, through these rc-
gions in a few weeks time, making but very
short stages by the way; and again, but few
of them winter there on their retarn south-
wardly.

It is not known how far to the south they
continue their route during their absence from
the northern and middle states.

Tortoise or Terrapins, Crabs and Oysters,
art furnished by the Chesapeake waters to the
inhabitants of Maryland, of very superior
quality and in great abundance