114 The Ottawa Naturalist. [Sept. 



erythrophthalmus) , otherwise almost unknown at Ottawa, has 

 been seen and taken here for two or three years past, even at 

 Buckingham, Quebec. This spring, already, it has been noted 

 twice on Parliament Hill and at Marshall's Bay near Arnprior. 

 Likewise the Mourning Dove (Zenaidura macroura) seemingly is 

 forging northward, as it has been seen the past three summers 

 at Shirley's Bay, near Ottawa. And it is interesting to note 

 how the Carolina Wren (ThryothorMS ludovicianus) is becoming 

 commoner all the time in southern Ontario and advancing a 

 little further northward each year. If this apparent tendency 

 in birds is a fact and will remain and increase in strength, it is 

 certainly a state of things much to be wished for by all nature- 

 lovers in this vicinity. 



It may be of interest to ornithologists generally, that the 

 flock of Evening Grosbeaks (Hesperiphona vespertina), which 

 took up their abode in Ottawa, February 7th (see Ottawa 

 Naturalist, Vol. xxii, p. 263), and were not seen after the 

 end of March, were rediscovered by Mr. H. Groh in swampy 

 woods at the end of the dump, Patterson's Creek, on April 29th, 

 and the next day made their appearance again at the home of 

 Mr. Odell, corner Cartier and Somerset Streets, who had re- 

 ported them first and on whose trees they stayed the greater 

 part of the time during their first stay in the city. And then 

 they remained in the Patterson Creek woods in ever diminish- 

 ing number until May ISth, when the last two were seen by Mr. 

 Groh. That is a remarkably long stay for this bird, which, 

 when it comes southward into civilization at all, usually departs 

 again to its northern haunts in March. It may also be added 

 here, what had been forgotten in the article in the March number, 

 that already in November an Evening Grosbeak had been seen 

 and taken by Mr. Wm. McComber, of Bouchette, in the Gatineau 

 Valley, Quebec, who upon being asked for more information, 

 wrote that the specimen had been alone, seemed dazed and lost 

 and did not feed while under observation, a fact borne out by 

 the stomach examination made by the writer. 



Last spring was an unusually backward one hereabouts. 

 March, April and the first part of May were unusually cold and 

 wet. There were few nights in April without frost. As might 

 be expected the birds were also late in their coming. The first 

 migrants that come in a wave about March 21st to 27th, like 

 the Song Sparrow, Junco, Redwings, Bronzed Grackles, Robins 

 and Bluebirds, were, as a wave, more than a week late. And 

 this lateness kept on during April. Some species, however, do 

 not let any cold, etc., bring them out of their usual time, like 

 the Crow and Killdeer, the former of which were even earlier 



