54 The Ottawa Naturalist. 



than these occupants of its sky parlors. Many a period of enforced wait- 

 ting in an unattractive court room across the street has been pleasantly 

 relieved by these same birds. From the windows of the same building 

 I have often caught other little glimpses of bird-life without, which were 

 in pleasing contrast with the glimpses of man life to be had within. 

 Here I have seen amongst others, Chipping Sparrows, Yellow Warblers, 

 Warbling Vireos, Downy Woodpeckers, and Cedar Waxwings ; a pair of 

 the last industriously ridding the ash trees of caterpillars, and so close that 

 I could easily distinguish the red wax-like appendages to the wing-tips, 

 from which the bird takes it name. These birds are in due season also 

 industrious fly-catchers, working in exactly the same way as the true 

 Tyrannise, and so it is a question if, after all, they do not earn a right 

 to at least some of the fruit they so greedily consume. 



Amongst other birds more or less common in busy parts of the city 

 may be named Bluebirds, Vesper Sparrows, and Savanna Sparrows, and 

 even that handsome Woodpecker, from whose thirty or more names 

 the American Ornithologist's Union has chosen " Flicker," appears in 

 my note-book as a town bird. 



That surprises are often in store for the observer of town birds is 

 shown by such records as those of a Brown Creeper climbing a tele- 

 graph pole at the corner of Elgin and Queen streets, a Red-breasted 

 Nuthatch on another telegraph pole at the corner of Elgin and Nepea-.i 

 streets, and a Wood Peewee in the back -yard of a Sparks street hard- 

 ware store. 



It will be noticed that in the above paper I have made no mention 

 of the various small patches of wood-land in outlying parts of the city, 

 such as those about Patterson's Creek, the old race-course, McKay's 

 bush, and the like, where nine-tenths of all the birds that visit the dis- 

 trict may be noted by a careful observer, while the Lovers' Walk and 

 M.tj ).'s Hill Park, in the very heart of the city will furnish records of 

 mmy of the rarest and most retiring of our wo)d-birds. Neither have 

 I mentioned another favorite haunt of the birds on Sussex street 

 where the very shyest of them are so tame that they never leave their 

 perches, even on the nearest approach of man. I mean the Geolog ; cal 

 Survey Museum. *L 



LV3RARY 



