44 The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



Yellow-flowered Variety of Large Coral-root. 

 Perhaps the finding of a yellow-flowered variety of Corallorhiza 

 multiflora is a sufficiently rare occurrence to be of interest. I 

 do not recall any Canadian record of it. 



A very fine scape with thirty-two flowers was brought to 

 me for identification by an artist associate here, and on going 

 to the spot from which it had come I found a clump of about 

 half a dozen scapes in very good condition and others bearing 

 evidence of a considerable struggle with the draggled drift 

 through which they had had to force their way. 



The form is quite that of the common variety and the lip 

 is similar in colour also white with a few crimson spots, but 

 the rest of the flower and the scape is a very definite but subdued 

 yellow, such perhaps as one understands by "straw-colour," 

 with only the faintest suspicion of green and without even a 

 slight suspicion of the colour characteristic of the common 

 C. multiflora. They were growing at the foot of a small hemlock 

 in a dry pine wood, with Partridge Berry, Wintergreen and 

 Maianthemum canadense among their nearest neighbours. 



R. Holmes, Toronto. 



The Black Rail in Ontario. In the April Naturalist, 

 Mr. C. W. Nash questions my conclusions regarding the Black 

 Rail, as given in mv review of Macoun's Catalogue of Canadian 

 Birds. 



I have a vague recollection of someone telling me that 

 Mr. Nash now thought the Rails that he recorded as Black, 

 were Young Virginia, but I could not say with whom the con- 

 versation took place, and on looking the matter up I find that 

 the only published basis that I have for this conclusion is the 

 statement in Fleming's list of the Birds of Toronto, (Auk, volume 

 23, page 453), under the heading Black Rail, that "Young 

 Virginia Rails have been mistaken for this species." This, of 

 course, does not necessarily refer to the specimens taken by 

 Mr. Nash, nor have I authority to say that this statement w^as 

 ever intended to refer to those specimens, but apparentlv I put 

 two and two together, and made something out of them. 



I was very glad to have Mr. Nash take this matter up, and 

 will be still more pleased if he will tell us all that he knows and 

 thinks about these Rails, recollecting that the Black Rail is 

 about the size of the Song Sparrow, though a little shorter in 

 length, with a bill of one-half an inch, whereas the Virginia has 

 r^ll%'>^ bill of over an inch long. 



^,*- j / 2^ W. E. Saunders, London, Ont. 



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