THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Milkweed, Blatchley's description may be erroneous; on the dog- 

 wood, again, both leaves and blossom, a fifth genus of this tribe 

 (Colas pis) is often found. 



Returning to the road just east of Robinson's we face east. 

 South of us lie two upland meadows of rough grass, somewhat 

 rocky and covered with hummocks and watery hollows, a favorite 

 place for the Kill-deer plover; here, too, sometimes in the fall is 

 heard the peculiar cry of the Yellowlegs. As I was walking along 

 here, at the end of last April, I heard a strange bird-note — a long, 

 loud whistle, melodious and with something of the plover's plaintive- 

 ness about it. After some time I discovered a bird with long nar- 

 row r wings circling at some height over the meadows, and several 

 times the strange cry was repeated. I brought a friend out with 

 me next week and, with the aid of a field glass, we watched as many 

 as three pairs of the birds feeding, running and flying about these 

 meadows. On alighting, they would raise their wings over their 

 backs till the tips met and then slowly fold them down at the sides, 

 at the same time uttering this long-drawn whistle. The bird I had 

 first heard, however, was certainly calling as it hovered and circled 

 high over tne field, and as I stood under it I distinctly saw its neck 

 and wings grow rigid for a moment as it forced the cry out on to 

 the air; it was the Bartramian Sand-piper, and this was its mating 

 call. I had the luck to startle a hen bird off her nest of eggs early 

 in May quite near the fence that we are going along. Once the 

 eggs are laid the birds become very shy and can rarely be approached . 

 But in the mating season they seem fairly tame and we watched 

 one settle twice on the top of a fence-post just north of where we 

 are now, within stone's throw of a farmhouse. I was standing in 

 the roadway at the time and my friend was at the snake-fence, his 

 foot on the bottom rail and his field glasses resting on the top, when 

 I noticed a weasel running along the bottom rail in our direction; 

 it showed not the slightest fear and never hesitated, but, advancing 

 steadily, stepped right over my friend's foot; in its teeth it held by 

 the nape of the neck, limp and lifeless, a large field-mouse, doubt- 

 less the family dinner. These creatures are very bold and show 

 the utmost unconcern of human beings. I remember being stopped 

 some years ago by a section boss on the railway, who asked to show 

 me a nest under a culvert that his gang had been cleaning out. 



