The pinnated grouse has been seen near
Boston within the present century, but is now exterminated, I believe,
except in Martha's Vineyard. The wild turkey was to be found not long
since in Berkshire, but probably it has become extinct there
too. Sometimes, for no reason that we can see, certain species forsake
their old abodes, as the purple martin, which within the last
quarter-century has receded some twenty miles from the seaboard,--or
appear where they were before unknown, as the cliff swallow, which was
first seen in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but within
about the same space of time has become as common hereabouts as any of
the genus. In examples so conspicuous the movement is obvious enough;
but in the case of rarer species, for instance, the olive-sided
flycatcher, who can tell whether, when first observed, it was new to
naturalists merely, or to this part of the country, or to the earth
generally? The distinction sometimes made in such cases between
accidental influences and the regular course of nature is a
superficial one.
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