Saunders — On Individual Birds. 45 



ether, proving at once the correction of the theory. The oc- 

 currence of spotted sets and unspotted sets in the same tree 

 showed that there was a great and constant difference in the 

 habits of individual herons, but with such a shy and wary 

 bird, nesting at a distance from home it was impossible to 

 follow out the line of observation. 



Quite different was the case in the fall of 1905 when two 

 Robins with white collars appeared on a Sunday in October in 

 the birds' bath outside my dining-room window. From 

 migrants one does not expect to learn much, so that plans 

 were at once laid for the capture of these two birds on the 

 morrow, as shooting on the Sabbath in Canada is illegal as 

 well as contrary to our peaceful and Sabbath-loving Canadian 

 habits. The birds remained around my garden all that day 

 in the company of about twenty other migrants, but that night 

 came a north wind with rain and the migrants all vanished 

 but one — gone south, of course, the experienced ( ?) observer 

 at once concluded, — and my vision of a white collared pair, 

 doubtless brother nestlings, as an addition to my cabinet, van- 

 ished, as T knew that the chances of meeting them on their 

 return in spring, providing that they lived so long, were slim 

 indeed. 



Through that week the number of migrants (from the 

 north, of course) gradually increased, and by Friday had 

 again reached large numbers, and my amazement was great 

 when a telephone message from home about 8 :30 on Saturday 

 morning said that "The White Collared Robin is in the bath." 

 In ten minutes it was in the hand of a wondering ornithologist 

 who was busily speculating on how much he did not know 

 alx)ut migration habits. At noon, the companion bird ap- 

 peared and was also secured, this proving almost beyond the 

 possibility of a doubt that the visitors of today and last Sun- 

 day were identical. Plainly, therefore, when migrants leave 

 us in fall and "go south" they will sometimes return north 

 within a few days, or else their disappearance does not 

 necessarily predicate a southern journey. 



Sometimes one will get from nesting conditions a hint as to 

 the domestic relations of the parents. For many years I took 



