2 28 The Ottawa Naturalist. [January 



nest of the redstart are composed is a kind of fibre gathered from 

 decaying timber and the seed pods of various kinds of vines, and 

 it is usually lined with animal hair. I have never known the set of 

 eggs to exceed four in number, and generally the second set con- 

 tainsonly three, with the addition mostly of a cow-bird's. The eggs 

 are of a whitish ground hue, marked towards the larger end with 

 a wealth of spotting of a flesh-colored hue and smaller dots of the 

 same hue scattered over the surface. Another bird of this species 

 was noticed building her nest at a much higher elevation deeper 

 in the wood, and even in a more exposed position; but a few days 

 after the nest was completed it wholly diappeared, and I suspected 

 that an olive-sided fly-catcher that had made her nest on an over- 

 hanging branch, a tew rods off", was the author of that. Other 

 nests were observed, but there was nothing specially noteworthy 

 about them. 



The Water Thrush. 



Near the centre of the woodland, adjoining Wildwood on the 

 north, is a natural water *' runway " where most of the large tim- 

 ber was up-rooted in the terrible wind and ice storm of April some 

 seven or eight years ago. In one of those up-turned roots, below 

 which there is in the early season, a deep pool of water, I have on 

 several occasions, in past years, noticed a nest of a water thrush, 

 and expected this year to take a set of its eggs from a cavity in 

 the same old root, but a delay of several days having occurred 

 after the time when I intended to have visited it for that purpose, 

 I found when I did so on the 28th of May, that I was too late, the 

 nest was there, but a glance at the four eggs which it contained 

 showed by their galvanized appearance that they were far advanced 

 in incubation, and I did not remove or revisit them. The cavity 

 in which this nest was placed was small, the bird had either found 

 it ready for her purpose, or had partly enlarged it, and the nest 

 itself was made of weed-stems, dry grass, animal hair, and " hair- 

 moss." Usually when the cavity is large, this species uses a 

 quantity of dead leaves in the construction of her nest. This bird 

 is not abundant anywhere in this country, though a pair or two of 

 them may be found each season in suitable localities, which is 

 always low, swampy woods, or along a natural water course 



