1908] Rhus Glabra in Canada? 179 



It is difficult to conceive of this bird nesting in the V^ack yards 

 of houses as it does in some localities. It is also quite as difficult 

 for people of the south and west -to realize the Blue Jay being 

 so retiring during the breeding season, as it is here in the Maritime 

 Provinces. 



Ceryle ALCYON,the Belted Kingfisher. Male with upper parts 

 bluish-gray ; numerous white spots on the wings ; throat and 

 sides of neck and belly white; sides bluish-gray, also a band of 

 same colour across breast. Female similar, but the band on 

 breast and sides rufous. Both sexes crested. Larger than the 

 robin. Tolerably common from April until October. One 

 recorded at Sussex, N.B., as late as Christmas Day. As the name 

 implies, this bird is a fisher, living upon small fish, crayfish and 

 larvae of various species of insects, that pass part of their lives 

 in the water. This species nests in tunnels burrowed into banks 

 of streams, and other suitable places. The eggs are beautifully 

 white, four to seven in number; incubation beginning about 

 when the first egg is laid, as broods of young show different sizes. 

 The rattling call of the kingfisher is its most distinctive char- 

 acteristic. 



These are our birds having some blue in their plumage, none 

 of which, however, need be mistaken for our real Bluebird, 

 Sialia sialis, having, as Burroughs says, the blue of the sky on 

 its back, and the brown of the earth below. 



IS RHUS GLABRA IN CANADA? 



By Edward L. Greene, U.S. National Museum, 

 Washington, D.C. 



Certainly all the descriptive botanies, and almost all the 

 lists and catalogues that have been written as for Canadian 

 territory, affirm that Rhus glabra, Linn., grows there. But then, 

 the affirmation may have been in every instance unwarranted. 

 Despite all the books and catalogues, it may be that no such 

 shrub as that name stands for, and must stand for, is found on 

 Canadian territory. It is easily possible that every such book 

 and catalogue may, in this particular, be wrong. 



Now, let us permit no misunderstanding as to what our 

 question reallv is. It is not doubted that in the Canadian flora 

 there occurs in several places what all have called Rhus glabra. 

 But, thev write "Rhus glabra, Linn.," and that is saying that 

 the particular kind and description of sumach to which 

 Linnaeus assigned that name is there. It is this often repeated 

 assertion that Linnaeus' Rhus glabra is in Canada, which is here 



