266 THE CANADIAN IvNTOMOI^OGlST. 



compare the two at iiiv leisure. 'Plie stran.^er was the vSeini-pahnated Plover 



and appeared surprisingly tame ; three or four twice crossed the river-arm and 



settled on the sand just beyond my willow screen, either never suspecting my 

 pi"esence or utterly fearless. 



In Choate's Wood itself, a little way above the pond, 1 heard one day the 

 most awful racket of crows; the noise started with a few sharp caws and rising 

 rapidly to a deafening babel, subsided more slowly into dead silence: after a 

 few moments this performance was repeated. Stepping softly forward through 

 the aisles of beech and maple I i)resently came upon scores and scores of crows 

 filling the tops of two large trees; at lirst 1 couldn't make head or tail of the 

 phenomenon, or rather it seemed to be all heads and tails, without a meaning, 

 though full enough of sound and fur}-. Hut presently the mystery was explained. 

 In one tree the crf)ws seemed to keep pretty still, but in the other 1 noticed they 

 kept hopping and jumping downwards and athwart, gradually edging nearer 

 and nearer to a projecting limb ; as soon as my eve rested on the limb the mystery 

 was cleared up. There at the end of a branch sat a large owl. apparently 

 wrapped in meditation and unconscious that the tide of this jabbering parlia- 

 ment was setting its way ; soon, however, it began to show signs of nervousness, 

 blinking and turning its neck this way and that ; whenever it moved as though 

 to fly the excitement of its i)ersecutors broke out into sharp caws; and when it 

 actually took wing, the whole host of crows from both trees precipitated them- 

 selves upon it with deafening cries and it was forced to settle almost immediately. 

 Apparent])- no crow dared come to close (|uarters with it as long as it kept its 

 perch. 



The North \\'ood w.as famous for my first Scarlet Tanager and the Indigo 

 JUmting; it was also a favorite resort of the Crested Flycatcher and the Oven- 

 bird. The fields just northeast of here were memorable for the I'artramian 

 Sandpiper, observed hrst at the end of April while at its tamest before nesting, 

 and beautifully vocal with its call note in an astonishingly long curve of sound; 

 beginning on a low almost guttural burr and rising energeticallv like the spirt 

 of a fountain to the top of its pitch, where it passes from trill or burr to a 

 characteristic plover wail that falls awa\- and dies on about the note it opens 

 with — "Pr-r-r-r-r-ee-ee]i-wee-ee-ee-ee." During the nesting season the birds are 

 seldom heard even at the moment of alighting, while raising the wings over the 

 head .and folding them slo\vl\- down to the sides; this is their favorite call moment 

 at other times, but while eggs and \-oimg are in the nest thev forego even this. 

 vSouth of the "Rockies" lies a great stretch of i)asture lands, in which the P>art- 

 ramian Sandpii)er has lately come to breed in great numbers, and here occasion- 

 ally in early spring I have had the ]^leasure of flushing a small flock of ^\'l!ow- 

 legs from marshy })ools ; their attitudes, movements and sounds of alarm before 

 taking to wing, being all most interesting to note. 



The Newtonville Swamp included a very rich sphagnum moss bog at its 

 west end. where 1 made fmds of nearl}- all the orchids known to me in the 

 Rideau district as well as some new ones ; it was also the scene of several of 

 my most interesting bird discoveries. 1 took held glasses with me on mv first 

 trip there and while gkjating over a wealth of Stemless Ladies' Slippers growing 



