1910] The Ottawa Naturalist. 143 



nivent rather than otherwise. The plant may not be new or 

 undescribed; for careful people who have studied these plants 

 in their native haunts in various places, and have cultivated 

 them together have been obliged to distinguish several. Beyond 

 doubt those listed and defined by Dr. vSmall in his excellent 

 " Flora of the Southern States " are good. This plant of Ontario 

 mav perchance be one of those, but quite as probably it is neither; 

 and assuredly it is not A . canadensis whatever it be. 



Traversing this delightful succession of groves, I came at 

 last to a dry open space, where the soil was sandy and the ground 

 more elevated. By the presence of two or three other plants not 

 seen before that day, I recognized the elevation as a continuation 

 of the glacial drift I had passed an hour before. The best of these 

 were Ranunculus jasciculans and R. rhomhoideus. Both were 

 past flowering and in good fruit; but they recalled again very 

 vividlv the gravelly knolls that in Wisconsin so long ago I used to 

 visit early each spring to see and gather, among others before 

 named, these two rare buttercups. I am informed by my friend 

 Professor John Macoun that Goldie, who was the discoverer of 

 R. rh'--mboideus and who published the species, almost a hundred 

 years ago, was a settler in western Ontario, and botanized about 

 Strathroy; so that here, without knowing it at the time, I was 

 on classic ground for Canadian 1 'Otany. 



A COLONY OF CLIFF SWALLOWS AND OTHERS. 



By Norman Criddle, Treesbank, Man. 



While collecting along the banks of the Souris River near 

 Treesbank on July 26th of this year, I came across several 

 colonies of Cliff Swallows with nests built on the almost perpen- 

 dicular banks of the stream. The first of these were well out of 

 reach, but eventually I discovered two on quite a low cliff 

 situated close to some convenient mud, which probably accounted 

 for the unusually low site chosen. The two colonies contained 

 about 130 nests, which were some 200 yards apart, the lowest 

 being only five feet from the more even ground beneath and but 

 a foot from the top. These were much bunched together and 

 gave quite a strange effect to the clifT owing to their dark, pear- 

 shaped forms and somewhat elongated necks against the lighter 

 back-ground. Many of the young birds had already left their 

 nests and could be seen flying with their parents, while others 

 were only partly fledged, and several nests still contained eggs, 

 though in an advanced stage of incubation. 



As is well known, most swallows are attacked in their homes 



