244 '^'^^ CANADIAN ENTOMOI^OGIST. 



to go into winter quarters in thickets of cedar about the golf links, and in mild 

 Decembers and Januaries I have often seen them hopping about in the open; 

 two mild years I saw Kingfishers on the running water below Corbett's pond 

 and noted them every month from October to April ; one more proof that it is 

 want of food, not cold, that drives them south ; I have also seen Meadow Larks 

 in December. Among regular winter residents (besides Chickadees and Wrens) 

 were noted Snow-birds, Horned Larks, Siskins, Goldfinches, Purple Finches, 

 Red-polls, Wax-wings, Pine Grosbeaks and the Evening Grosbeak. In spring, 

 favorites were the Ruby- and Golden-Crowned Kinglets, the American Red- 

 start, the (Black and White Warbler, the Blackburnian, the Chestnut-sided, the 

 Bay-breasted, the Canadian and the Black-throated Blue Warblers. 



A season or two's rambling about the neighborhood soon led to the selec- 

 tion of some five favorite haunts for my leisure hours:— Monkey Mountain on 

 the outskirts of the town; Choate's Wood, the North Wood and "The Rocky 

 Mountains", all three in line for a single round trip ; and last the Newtonville 

 swamp about ten miles west. At Monkey Mountain I discovered a favorite 

 haunt of the Brown Thrasher, and spent hours listening to its masterful music. 

 It was here, too, that I first discovered (to my surprise) the double personality 

 of the Chickadee ; the bird I was watching at its trapeze work suddenly passing 

 from the familiar scolding prattle to a soft deliciously sweet and plaintive 

 "Tee-hee"; different from the Phoebe's cry, which is not nearly so musical 

 nor plaintive at all. The most attractive of all the Flycatcher calls in my exper- 

 ience is the Olive-sided Flycatcher's "Whip-whee-eu", loud, clear, and command- 

 ing, but no way harsh (the common fault of the Flycatchers) ; next to it I place 

 the' Crested Flycatcher's, more imperious and slightly harsh, but not to the 

 point of disagreeable. The Crested Flycatcher is quite common about Port 

 Hope and once I had a curious experience. I was working in my room about 

 supper time when there came to my door a shuffling of feet and then a hesi- 

 tating knock. In came two boys who explained that they wanted to show me 

 something, if I would promise not to forfeit it; they had been bird's nesting 

 and had found a strange egg in a nest built over an old Highholder's in a hollow 

 apple tree. Reference to Chester Reed's book soon brought the discovery that 

 iL -vas a Crested Flycatcher's. Knowing the peculiar instinct of this bird to weave a 

 snake's skin into its building material I asked the boys if they had noticed any- 

 thing peculiar about the nest. They hadn't, but would go and look carefully 

 over it next day ; on their coming to report I was to tell them the name of the 

 egg. In tliey came, full of excitement, with what, do you suppose, in their 

 hands? Not the slough of a snake, but a mighty good substitute they had found 

 m the material of the nest— five or six crumpled pieces of oil-paper candy- 

 wrappers! John Burroughs records having seen onion-peel and the scales of 

 shadfish in their nests where the birds had failed to find snake skins. It seems 

 possible, too, that the Flycatcher does his own fishing for shad ; not long ago 

 a Flycatcher was seen, by a good observer, to play the Kingfisher and pick a live 

 shad out of the water, on the shore of Lake Ontario. This curious habit of the 

 Crested Flycatcher is apparently inherited from tropical ancestors and is shared 

 with it (so I have read) by one of the common Flycatchers of Brazil. 



The whole course of my round from Choate's to the North Wood and 

 "The Rockies" was soon dotted with discoveries. Near Mitchell's Gardens I 



