The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXIV. 



ity of the creeper's voice and the bark-like appear- 

 ance of its plumage. 



September finishes with an occasional visit from 

 a yellow-bellied sapsucker or blue jay and the ar- 

 rival of the first batch of slate-colored juncos. The 

 jays never linger long, merely alight on the tops of 

 the elms and away again. These elms offer an at- 

 tractive resting place for birds of the open country. 

 Once a sparrow hawk perched there; an occasional 

 crow is seen in early morning, and meadowlarks 

 often sing from the tip-top foliage. Red-winged 

 blackbirds, too, sometimes rest there ; once I saw 

 one of them bathe. 



About the beginning of October bands of restless 

 golden-crowned kinglets visit the apple and cherry 

 trees, as well as the evergreens, while an occasional 

 white-breasted nuthatch prefers to examine the bark 

 of the elms. A little later the black-capped chicka- 

 dees come and tell me that migration is rapidly wan- 

 ing. Though there are a few finches and others 

 still in the garden, October is essentially a chickadee- 

 kinglet month. 



The chickadees are the gleaners that follow in 

 the wake of the earlier hosts of insect hunters. They 

 are always followers rather than leaders Their pro- 

 gress must need be slow if they would hunt out all 

 of the tiny stages of insects that the others have over- 

 looked in their haste. I sometimes wonder that 

 there is an insect astute enough to hide its progeny 

 from that army of keenly peering eyes. It seems to 

 me that, not only each tree, but each twig and leaf 

 is e.xamined many, many, times. 



The hermit thrush is more commonly seen now. 

 On Oct. 13, 1919, at dawn I saw one taking a 

 bath, or rather, I heard him in a varied repertoire 

 as it was scarcely light enough to' see him distinctly. 

 First he gave his usual chuch, followed by a whis- 

 tled pheii, and then that nasal n'})ea, that the Wil- 

 son's thrush delights in, and finally he sang in an 

 extremely subdued tone. I had not been making a 

 daily practice of arising at dawn but, heartened by 

 hearing the hermit sing, I tried it again the following 

 morning and saw a bird new to the garden, a fox 

 sparrow, having a royal time all to itself in the bath 

 and splashing noisily. At first I thought it another 

 hermit, but the whir of the wings as it splashed 

 spelt fox sparrow, and as it grew lighter I saw it 

 distinctly the first of this species I had seen in 

 the garden. 



Towards the end of October, pine siskins, red- 

 polls, and tree sparrows pay brief visits to the gar- 

 den, and still later possibly grosbeaks and waxwings, 

 but the bathing season is over. It is cold now and 

 the birds do not feel the need of it The indomit- 

 able song sparrow is still here in small nuTibers, 

 and a few white-throats, juncoes, and robins, but 

 the bulk has gone. 



November is mainly a chickadee month. What 

 other birds there are have mostly retreated to the 

 shelter of the woods. 



A list of the birds observed to actually rest in 

 my garden, save two species, the saw-whet and the 

 screech owl, which were plainly heard but not 

 seen, is given below. Those designated by an 

 asterisk used the bath, while several others were 

 content with the spray. I have made no mention 

 of birds seen passing overhead, such as swallows, 

 swifts, nighthawks, and others. The lot on which 

 these notes were made is situated in the town of 

 St. Lambert (opposite Montreal), a quarter of a 

 mile from the river shore. This lot is about one 

 hundred feet square and contains lawn and garden 

 with apple, cherry, ash, maple, elm, cedar and 

 spruce trees. A favorable feature is a thicket of 

 hawthorn and wild cherry in an adjoining lot. 



The list follows: sparrow hawk; screech and 

 saw-whet owl; hairy and downy woodpecker; yel- 

 low-bellied sapsucker; flicker; ruby-throated hum- 

 mingbird; *wood peewee ; *least flycatcher; 

 '^phoebe; kingbird; crow; blue jay; ^bronze 

 grackle; *red-winged blackbird; cowbird; ^Balti- 

 more oriole; meadowlark; evening grosbeak; pine 

 grosbeak; redpoll; ^purple finch; ^goldfinch; 

 ^domestic sparrow; '^^song, *white-throated, ^white- 

 crowned, ^chipping, *fox, and tree sparrows; ^slate- 

 colored junco; *black and white, ^black-poll, *bay- 

 breasted, *black-throated blue, ^black-throated 

 green, *Cape May, ^yellow, ^yellow palm, *Ten- 

 nessee, ^Nashville, ^chestnut-sided, ^myrtle, 

 ^magnolia, and Canadian warblers; yellow-throat, 

 ^redstart, ovenbird, and ^water-thrush; ^red-eyed, 

 solitary, Philadelphia, and warbling vireos; *cat- 

 bird ; ruby-crowned, and golden-crowned kinglets; 

 ''^red-breasted. and white-breasted nuthatches; 

 black-capped chickadee; brown-creeper; house, and 

 ^winter wrens; ^Wilson's, gray-cheeked, ^olive- 

 backed, and '"^hermit thrushes; ^robin ; and bluebird. 



