586 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA 



keeps well in the centre of the city. A flight occurred in 1895, 

 when several small flocks spent a month or more in the residential 

 parts of the city. (/. H. Fleming.) About i8th February, 1895, 

 Toronto was favoured by a visit, in considerable force, of these 

 beautiful northern birds. While here they fed chiefly on the berries 

 of the mountain ash, and on 20th March I noticed numbers of them 

 fly down to a pool of snow water in Queen's park to drink and bathe 

 or rather splash themselves. I saw four on the 14th December, 1895, 

 and one on 5th March, 1896, with a flock of A. cedrorum; and on 31st 

 December, 1896, I saw a fine male taken from a small flock just 

 north of the city. A few remained with us till late in April, and on 

 the 1 6th of this month I saw them in the tall elms in University 

 grounds, having changed their habits entirely, for they were chasing 

 every luckless winged insect that came in sight, and snapping their 

 bills much after the manner of the flycatchers. Mr. Percival Turner 

 writes me that he saw a small flock in the English Church yard at 

 Belleville on 6th February, 1900. (/. Hughes-Samuel.) 



Three were observed by Mr. Alfred E. Preble in the stunted spruce 

 woods near Fort Churchill, Hudson bay, on June 25th, 1901. Mr. J. 

 B. Tyrrell speaks of seeing a flock "in a grove of birch trees near 

 the shore of Theitage lake, on their breeding grounds." This lake 

 is situated about 300 miles slightly north of west of Fort Churchill. 

 (E. A. Preble.) A tolerably common winter resident in Manitoba. 

 (E. T. Seton.) Sometimes common at Aweme, Man., in early winter. 

 (Criddle.) An erratic species in Manitoba both as regards numbers 

 and regularity of appearance. Appearing suddenly in large numbers 

 and again being absent for several years. Only noted in midwinter. 

 (Atkinson.) An uncommon straggler near Prince Albert, Sask. ; 

 shot once only, but twice noted in the spring of 1895. (Coubeaux.) 

 One specimen of this species in first plumage was shot on the moun- 

 tain side adjoining Chief Mountain lake (Waterton lake) at an 

 altitude of about 4,200 feet in thick coniferous woods, where it was 

 in company with numbers of Ampelis cedrorum. Being taken on 

 August 19th it was evidently in its summer home. {Coues.) One 

 specimen seen at Medicine Hat, Sask., April nth, 1894, and another 

 on the 14th of the same month; a common species at Canmore, 

 Rocky mountains, in May, 1891, but no nests were seen. [In 1885, 

 the writer shot young birds, on June 27th, at the same place, and 

 had no doubt about nests being in the spruce woods that then 



