1908 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 141 



builders had stolen a whole length of clothes-line, and with great ingenuity 

 had wound the cord round and round, and between the young branches of 

 the tree, making a very firm basis for their nest. 



You all know that the first egg of a pullet is sometimes very small : the 

 mother crow, whose nest I invaded, must have been a yearling bird, for 

 there was in the nest one very diminutive egg, with others of the usual 

 size. 



Ah, our patience is meeting with its reward — the birds and animals are 

 no longer silent. 



There is an oriole wending its way to its nest that we saw suspended 

 from the extremity of an elm bough on the verge of the wood. 



And yonder, near the top of that tall hemlock stump, a Golden-winged 

 Wood-pecker (Colaptes duratus) is busy enlarging a hole in which to make 

 its nest. What a litter he is making ! "The carpenter is known by his chips." 

 Now he flies away. Observe the graceful curves of his flight, and notice his 

 peculiar call, which suggested the common name by which he is known— 

 ' 'Wake-up." 



The stump he was operating upon must be fourteen feet high. Its top 

 shews that the axe had severed it from the upper portion of the tree. How 

 did the woodman find standing room for his work? The explanation is 

 this : — the tree was blown down in some fierce gale. It tore from the ground, 

 on all sides but one, a mass of roots, charged heavily with soil and stones, 

 and leaving a deep hollow in the earth. The farmer came; peeled off the 

 bark as far as the branches ; cut off the limbs and top ; then marked the 

 trunk into lengths. He stept up on the tree, and standing with feet wide 

 apart, chopped off standard logs — one — two — three. As the third log fell, 

 he felt the butt, on which he was standing, beginning to move. He jumped, 

 and so doing, escaped from being shot, as from a catapult, yards away. The 

 counter weight being gone, the heavy mass of roots, with the stump in 

 place, fell back into its matrix with a thud. 



See yonder in the maples a pair of grey squirrels. What a frolic they 

 are having! Chasing each other as if they were playing "tag," their long 

 tails extended, or curved gracefully over their backs. Those tails serve them 

 for Winter blankets. The little creatures, in their snug retreats, during the 

 cold weather lie closely curled, and wrapped by their soft tails, heedless of 

 wind and storm. They are sportive enough now — bye-and-bye, when Autumn 

 is well advanced, they will be busy collecting beech nuts, acoms and butter 

 nuts for their Winter supplies. 



The butter nuts are truly to the squirrels JugJans — Jovis glans — Jupiter's 

 nuts — the provision made by Providence for their Winter's need. 



On the other side of us a red squirrel is scolding — "chuck, chuck." I 

 have lost my liking for this little animal ever since I saw one of its kind 

 tearing to pieces the callow young from a young bird's nest that it had dis- 

 covered. 



Yonder runs the prettily striped ground squirrel or "chipmunk." One 

 evening in the first year of my residence in Canada, I walked out from Mon- 

 treal, where I was then living, to Cote des Neiges. There I encountered 

 half a dozen boys who were greatly excited. Some of them had sticks in their 

 hands; some large stones; all were eagerly searching the stone fences. "What 

 are you hunting?" I asked. "A chipmunk! A chipmunk! !" they shouted, 

 and away they ran. I had never before heard the name. I wondered what 

 ferocious beast was known under the strange appellation. 



I was as perplexed as the tourist who came to Quebec to view the Winter 

 scenery. He was a man of more leisure and means than wit. He put up 

 at the St. Louis Hotel, and in the afternoon walked out to the Plains. 



