Notes, Reviews and Comments. 213 



1890 and April 1891. Accident, carnivorous birds, man, disease, and 

 other foes had accounted for more than half of ihem. This was repeated 

 in '9i'92,'93, and '94; but in '95 that square mile had probably not more 

 than 10 birds in June. It is an interesting speculation whether the 

 old ratio of mortality will hold good, or will a greater proportion of 

 Blue birds escape this year than nsual. As an offset of this loss, it seems 

 you have the Dickcissel ( Spiza americana) at Ottawa this year. About 

 the middle of June I had a card from Mr. Robert Elliott, stating that at 

 Mr. Beck's farm, about 12 miles from London, there was a nest of the 

 Dickcissel with 5 eggs, and asking me to come and see it. As it was 

 the first record for our county, I decided I would go. On June 21st I 

 left London about 5 a.m. and had not ridden three miles when I heard 

 a Dickcissel a'ong the roadside, and, dismounting, heard another 

 immediately. Two males were singing in an orchard, and after looking 

 in vain for the females who were doubtless on their eggs, I finished the 

 journey and found the pair of birds on Mr. Beck's farm with eggs nearly 

 ready to hatch. Mr. Beck is a lover of birds and had spent a good deal 

 of time watching the strangers and finding their nest. Of cliff swallows,* 

 which are quite rare all through these western counties where they were 

 formerly so abundant, Mr. Beck has a fine colony of perhaps 50 nests, 

 one or more being placed on every building and shed on the farm, 

 save one. His skill with the rifle and shot gun, coupled with a genuine 

 Canadian hatred of the English sparrow has left him with this fine 

 colony of swallows while his neighbors are bereft of them. 



It was curious that on my return home at noon, I should receive 

 the first notice of the Ottawa birds, and still more curious that on the 

 next day, 7 miles west of London, I should hear another male singing 

 beside the railway track. Later on I found another one twenty miles 

 south and I have been wondering ever since if I had been deaf to 

 Dickcissels m the early spring. 



When I reached Ottawa on July 12th the chief Dickcissel on the 

 Experimental Farm greeted me on my arrival with his monotonous song, 

 which he kept up till the 15th, but after that date he was not heard. 

 The clover, in which the nest was probably placed, had been cut and 

 possibly the home had been destroyed. It is to be hoped that their 



* Petroclielidon lunifrons. 



