Swales and Taverner — On Lake Muskoka Birds. 68 



large groups of migrating birds were to be met with at almost 

 any point. We naturally expected to find analogous 

 conditions up here, but in this were disappointed. During this 

 same time at Guelph, about one hundred and twenty miles to 

 the south, the migrations were in full swing and the northern 

 forms were coming in almost daily. Many of the common 

 summer residents had left Muskoka before we arrived. These 

 were not in all cases species that hurry through the southern 

 stations early in the season, but the late comers and long stay- 

 ers, as White-throated Sparrows, Magnolia and Myrtle Warb- 

 lers, and ethers. These birds all breed in Muskoka, the first 

 very commonly, but of it we only saw one and of the others 

 only one or two. Nor were other species from farther north 

 much more common and it looked as if the resident birds had 

 left before the more northern breeders had started to migrate. 

 It may be held, of course, that in this vast extent of wooded 

 territory, the nugrants were so widely scattered as to be more 

 easily overlooked than seen, but this hardly satisfies the condi- 

 tions as we found them. The amount of hard work we put in 

 and the ground we covered would in fJiis case have yielded 

 more individuals if this were the whole explanation. 

 Be the reason what it may, the fact remains, that up here, just 

 when we should expect the first great rush of the migrations, 

 we found the forest and fields ornithologically almost dead and 

 more resembling the quietness of the mid-breeding season than 

 the first flush of the migrating one. 



From August 24 until September 4 we were able to record 

 a total of oiJ species ; a number of these were represented but 

 by one or two specimens and few were common in the ordinary 

 acceptation of the term. These peculiar conditions are inter- 

 esting and suggestive and may give this report of the trip a 

 little more value than it might otherwise have as a mere cata- 

 logue of birds seen. 



Gibralter Island is about one half mile long and in places 

 not more than half that distance in width. It is directly across 

 the lake from Beaumaris. The rocks rise abruptly from the 

 lake shore and form an extensive ridge heavily wooded, in 

 the center, which culminates at the north end in a high promon- 



