152 The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



of the family to leave for the south, large flocks remaining until 

 October 2Cth. I saw a few feeding in an orchard in the village as 

 late as October 24th. 



Chestnut-sided Warbler. — Arrives here during the second 

 week of May and many remain to breed. Its nest is usually a 

 slight affair of grasses and vegetable fibres placed in the crotch of 

 some small shrub or sapling amongst deciduous second growth. 

 A nest found June 7th was very compactly built for this species. 

 It contained four fresh eggs a-^d was placed in a triple crotch of a 

 basswood sapling amongst undergrowth in a well timbered 

 locality. It was two feet from the ground and composed of shreds 

 of yellow birch bark. Coarse bleached grasses, well woven and 

 bound with a large quantity of spiders' silk, ornamented with 

 numerous basswood bud coverings and with fine rootlets and 



horsehair. 



This bird showed great foresight in placing the nest, as it 



was completely hidden by a large basswood leaf, though a week 



previous, during development of nest and leaves, the nest was in 



plain view. In the several nests I examined in this district the 



number of eggs deposited was invariably four. The uniformity, 



with regard to the number of eggs in a set, of the several warblers 



enumerated, may perhaps be partially ascribed to the absence of 



that parasite the cowbird, which appears not very partial to newly 



settled districts notwithstanding an abundance of cows. I did 



not find any warblers' nests containing eggs of the cowbird, in 



fact the only individual intruded on was a bluebird, and in this 



instance the would-be cowbird did not mature as the egg, with 



three of the bluebirds, was frozen during the severe frosts of 



May 9-ioth, 1902. 



The American redstart and Maryland yellow-throat were 

 fairly common, though not nearly so abundant as in Montreal. 



The yellow warbler, one of the most common summer resi- 

 dents in Montreal, was notable by its absence, as I did not see a 

 single specimen either as summer resident or migrant. 



One nest of the ovenbird was found July ist, 1902, not arched 

 though built higher on the side furthest in the hollow of the mound 

 in which it was located, containing four eggs. I found this 

 species fairly common in damp woods, and their song was very 

 noticeable at night from 9 to 1 1 o'clock, during the breeding 

 season. 



