io6 The Ottawa Naturalist. [August 



A LITTLE BIRD EXPEDITION. 



By F. A. Saundkks. 



On July i6th the writer, in company with some hundreds 

 of other excursionists, left Ottawa for Ste. Anne de Beaupre, 

 not in the hope of being relieved of any bodily ailment, but for 

 the prosaic reason that the trip was cheap, and would bring a 

 lover of nature very easily to a part of the country where the 

 fauna is more northern in character than ours at home. After a 

 visit to that famo.us place of some few minutes duration only, 

 the road east was taken, with shank's mare for a conveyance, and 

 in due time the picturesque village of St. Joachim de Mont- 

 morency came in sight, standing just opposite the lower end of 

 the Island of Orleans, and giving a fine view of both Mt. Ste. 

 Anne and Cap Tourmente, the mountains which are visible 

 down the river on a clear day from the terrace at Quebec, the 

 latter being the first of the Laurentians below that point whose 

 base is washed by the tides, and the one which, with the little 

 chapel and cross on the summit, is so well seen from the deck of 

 a passing steamer. 



The next day was spent in climbing to the top of this hill, 

 and the writer was so fortunate as to miss the main path and 

 get entangled in a swamp in which there was such an abundance 

 of bird life, and all of it so interes;ing that one knew not which 

 way to turn or which bird to look at first. Here was surely the 

 place where they make up those tourist parties of warblers that 

 are at the same time such a delight to see and such a vexation 

 to sort out in the fall migration. Blackburnian, Magnolia and 

 Parula Warblers, and many commoner species came up from all 

 sides to see who the intruder was,— a mutual inspection in which 

 the birds had much the worst of the bargain, as they are perfect 

 gems of colour and were that day in their very best Sunday 

 plumage, which the writer certainly was not. 



The climb proved to be a comparatively easy one after all, 

 and repaid the climber in many ways, but chiefly by the view 

 from the top, which was most impressive. Except for the moun- 

 tains near by, and those bounding the horizon to the south (in 



