MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 87 



ninth no records were made. Both males and females were noted, but no 

 nests or young birds were found. 



54. Piranga erythromelas. Scarlet Tanager. — There are but five records 

 of this species, three for July and two for August. The first noted was a 

 beautiful male in an ash and alder thicket along the river. Other males in 

 the breeding plumage were seen on July 6 and 8. 



55. Progne subis subis. Purple Martin. — A single purple martin was 

 seen flying over Browii Lake on August 13. It was the only one of its species 

 seen in the region, altho both at Foster City and Waucedah we were told 

 that the birds nested about the buildings. 



56. Hirundo erythrogastra. Barn Swallow. — A number of birds of this 

 species were noted about Holmes farm on June 29. They undoubtedly 

 nested here about the buildings. At Browm Lake the species was noted 

 three times, July 29, 30 and 31, on each of these dates a few individuals 

 being observed over the lake in company with tree swallows. Thej^ were 

 possibly migrating birds. 



57. Iridoprocne bicolor. Tree Swallow. — This swallow was abundant dur- 

 ing July and the first three days of August. Numbers were seen daily flying 

 over the rivers and Brown Lake. On July 5, a number of young birds were 

 seen perched along a branch of a dead tree by the river. We approached in a 

 boat and shot one young bird. It fell fluttering and not quite dead into 

 the quiet backwater, and in a few seconds the air was filled with a twitter- 

 ing, darting flock of swallows, swirling doAvn to the wounded bird and up 

 again, often almost enveloping us. In a few moments the bird was motion- 

 less, and the flock dispersed, a number of them alighting on the perch from 

 which the one had just fallen. The whole performance reminded one 

 strikingly of the behavior of terns under similar circumstances. The birds 

 bred commonly along the river. Numbers of nests were found in old wood- 

 pecker holes, and in hollows in trees. Sometimes a nest would not be more 

 than five or six feet above the ground, but more often from fifteen to forty. 

 About the fifth of July, the young birds began to appear in numbers, and 

 by the tenth, one saw rows and rows of them on dead limbs over the river, 

 waiting to be fed by the hurrying adults. A nest opened on July 3 contained 

 five young birds about ready to leave it, while as late as the eighteenth ad- 

 ults were seen to carry food into holes in the trees. 



58. Riparia riparia. Bank Swallow. — A small colony of bank swallows 

 bred in an old gravel pit close to an abandoned dam on the main river. 

 There were some six or eight pairs here. A nest was dug out July 5 which 

 contained five eggs in a very advanced stage of incubation. Duringthe last 

 four days of July, birds of this species were seen about Brown Lake. The 

 last seen was a single bird on August 3. 



59. Bombycilla cedrorum. Cedar Waxwing. — This species was not fre- 

 quently seen in July, and was then confined mainly to the trees along the 

 river, in which the birds perched high in the air, and caught insects on the 

 wing like true flycatchers. In August the species became more abundant, 

 particularly as the wild cherries began to ripen, when flocks of twenty or 

 more would be seen in a single clump of trees. This lasted about ten days, 

 from August 6 to 16. On the latter date a flock of eight birds was seen 

 by the rock outcrop engaged in catching large Tabanid flies. Two birds 

 were collected, and their crops and even their mouths were found to be full 

 of these flies. In catching these insects they exhibited almost the dexterity 

 of a true flycatcher. A nest found on July 19 in a black spruce and tamarack 

 swamp contained three newly hatched nestlings. 



