124 The Ottawa Naturalist. [September 



camp. What a restful rural sight ! The birds were fairly bubbling 

 over with melody, the sweet vesper sparrows, perhaps, carrying 

 off the palm. 



April ii. Heard a brown creeper gaily singing as he wound 

 around a mossy ash. Saw two black squirrels chasing each 

 other round the dead top of a tall maple. A flying squirrel came 

 out of a hole and descended gracefully to a bass-wood stub 

 nearby. On striking the stub the squirrel went down to a brush 

 heap. On agitating this it crawled to the foot cf a beech and 

 going to the top, passed to the foot of its home tree and so back 

 to the nest. 



April 14. Today Dirca doffs the brown fur cap he wore 

 throughout the winter and gaily shakes his golden forelocks in 

 the sun. Saw four red-backed salamanders. Hylas are in- 

 cessantly harping in the pool. 



April 23. A ruffed grouse built its nest among beech leaves 

 in a brush pile, a hen had a nest four feet from it. The first 

 tgg laid by the grouse was accidentally destroyed by a person go- 

 ing to the hen's nest. The grouse then laid in the hen's nest 

 and they have laid five eggs apiece. 



May 3. Saw ruffed grouse making its nest near the ridge. 

 May 6. Followed the "Peeper" -little tree toad, {Clioro- 

 philus triseatius.) Owing to some ventriloquial power the crea- 

 ture is hard to locate. I found this individual on the grass, on 

 the edge of a pool with its throat much inflated, peeping vigor- 

 ously, and occasionally uttering a gurgling trill of longer dura- 

 tion. 



May 7. Exceedingly warm, quite like June, leaves bursting 

 on every side. Wha,t a keen delight is afforded the one who 

 takes a wood-walk today. Butterflies glancing and pirouetting 

 over the blossoms, bees on the Claytonias and Violets, the june- 

 berrv hanging her graceful leaves on the forest's skirts, squir- 

 rels chattering and birds bubbling over with song. An irresist- 

 able march onward of nature's various forces. 



June 5. Father saw dead Procyon lotor (racoon) in pasture. 

 1 saw live Mephitis mephitica in woods. At sight of me it 



retreated to burrow in a knoll and on my standing still it re- 





