490 PROCEEDINGS OF TISE 



'* This morning, 6th May, I heard a great screaming and 

 scolding noise in the garden, and some of the oddest noises 

 that bird ever made. I went to try to make it out, and found 

 it was a Pipra polyglotta of Wilson, Icteria viridis of Bona- 

 parte. But of all noises I ever heard made by birds I must 

 confess that of the blue jays to be the worst; there are a good 

 many round about here, but I have only seen one, which came 

 into the garden to-day. The mewing of the cat-bird I also 

 heard to-day, for the first time : a pair of them allowed me to 

 get within ten yards : the birds here are all as tame as possi- 

 ble. The beautiful little summer yellow birds, iSylvia citrinella, 

 are very numerous, and come so close that you can see the co- 

 lour of every feather. There are also plenty of flycatchers, 

 and several of the sparrow tribe, which I cannot yet make out: 

 one has a note like a yellow-hammer; another, with a very 

 pleasing note, I at first took to be a Sylvia, but have since 

 made it out to be Fringilla melodia. There are also wrens 

 and blackheaded tits in plenty, the note of the last is nearly like 

 that of our blue-headed tit. The day before yesterday, walk- 

 ing from Hudson, I saw three meadow larks at play in the air ; 

 they alighted on a tree just by, and then crossed the road with 

 their wings about two-thirds expanded, and scarcely moving : 

 they passed so near that I could see every mark on their 

 breasts. Of crows there are plenty, in flight and note as 

 different as can be from ours ; no one need mistake them. Not 

 so the swallows, between which and our own in flight and note 

 I cannot discover any difference. Besides plenty of swallows, 

 there are to-day a great many swifts, here called chimney swal- 

 lows, Cypselus pelasgia ; and one, if not two, species of Hi- 

 rundo, which I cannot make out. The first woodpecker I 

 have seen in the garden came to-day ; he stayed so short a time 

 that I could not make him out. A pair of Tardus rufus seem 

 to have a nest somewhere near ; they are as tame as the poul- 

 try. I have seen one or two grackles, and a bird which I take 

 to be Wilson's Alauda rufa, Bonaparte's ^w^/iM^s spinohtla ; 

 also a sandpiper, a partridge, Tetrao umbellus, some wild ducks, 

 and one hawk I could not make out. 



" I find that there are in this neighbourhood grey and red 

 squirrels, ground squirrels, musk rats, &c. ; but as yet I have 

 only seen one ground squirrel. We walked yesterday to a 

 hill covered with fir, arbor-vitae, cedar, cypress, &c. ; here we 



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