242 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Space ; only those who know the weight of a black duck and the terrific speed 

 of its flight across a danger zone in mid-September, when plunging towards 

 its nightly roost, can have the slightest idea of what this piece of falconry 

 meant. 



The tables were turned when one of these "duck hawks" suddenly 

 seized a wooden decoy we had put out in a small bay and tried to drag it 

 from its moorings. The savage anger of its blows with the beak and repeated 

 clutchings of claw, made a deeper impression on us than they did on the per- 

 fidious piece of basswood itself ; though this too showed plainly by dint and 

 ocore where mandibles had glanced and talons slipped in their stroke. 



I remember one day when my pupil and I went up the lake with a batch 

 of decoys in search of wood duck and teal. On the way up I landed a couple 

 of bass with a trolling rod, and then we drew our boats into cover of the reeds 

 and entered the "hide". We hadn't been there many minutes when we heard a 

 scrambling sound from my boat, and I was just in time to see a mink drop one 

 of the bass over the gunwale and make ol¥ through the cat-tails on "safety 

 first" principles. They are astonishingly bold and will steal bait from a min- 

 now pail almost under one's nose. While waiting patiently in the hide, we 

 heard the whistling of wings as from an approaching flock of wood duck. But 

 nothing appeared and the sound lasted on and on without perceptibly waxing 

 or waning ; I could make nothing of it ; it might have been a phantom flock 

 tethered in a nightmare, beating the air but making no progress. My compan- 

 ion's ears were better trained than mine and he soon solved the riddle ; a vast 

 phalanx of wild geese strung across the sky on their southward march, with 

 leaders and outriders all in order ; they appeared almost as specks so high were 

 they flying, yet the sound was plainly audible for many minutes. 



In 1899, the year before I settled in Port Hope, it was my good fortvme to 

 spend spring and early summer in Toronto. My best finds were botanical, and 

 the only bird record I made was very early in May towards the wesr of High 

 Park. I had just discovered a great colony of Skunk Cabbage in a small willow 

 swamp, when almost over my head I heard some full sweet tones of bird music ; 

 they came from a nearby poplar just leafing out, and by tip-toeing cautiously up 

 I was able to spy the singer and watch him through his song,. As soon as I de- 

 scribed the bird to Dr. Brodie he proclaimed it the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. I 

 had never seen or heard of it before, and though I often saw it afterwards at 

 Port Hope, I never heard it in full song; until I came to Peterborough ; now, 

 whenever I hear it, I am carried back in spirit to High Park and the revelation 

 of twenty years ago. The plant treasures were far more numerous, and so inter- 

 esting as to fill the whole season with delightful surprises; east of the city I dis- 

 covered the little Rue Anemone, which Dr. Brodie assured me he had never 

 found except west of Toronto ; up north I found the handsome Orange Lily and 

 the nodding heads of the Woodlily ; the Turk's Cap, also, I found at Scarborough 

 Heights; in Rosedale, too, I first found the "wooden enemies" of my Scottish 

 home {Anemone nemorosa), the most delicate and charming of all their kind — 

 the true "wind-flower ;" to the west I found the lovely blue Lupine, the Orange 

 Milkweed, the Beard-tongue, the Feverwort and the Painted Cup. By the fol- 

 lowing April I had settled in Port Hope. 



