NOVA SCOTIAN ZOOLOGY — PIERS. 409 



an elm which grew on the interval. Next morning (1st July), 

 before daylight, Mr. McLennan was again under the tree, and 

 upon the first movement, fired a charge of shot at the bird. 

 Only one pellet struck, knocking a piece, about one-eighth of an 

 inch long, from the upper mandible. When he saw how slightly 

 it was wounded, he could not resist the temptation to keep it 

 alive. It was a male. Mr. McLennan had it in confinement for 

 about three years, and during the summer it sang constantly. 

 It always was very wild in the cage ; keeping its head bald from 

 being frequently thrust through the bars, and its feathers broken 

 or abraded by contact with the sides of its prison. When it 

 •died, the plumage was too ragged to make it worth skinning. 

 The only other records of this bird in Canada are, one example 

 taken at Chatham, Ontario, 1860, by Mr. W. E. Sandys, and a 

 pair noted near Hamilton, Ontario, by Mr. Mcllwraith in 3 883* 

 The identification of the present specimen is utterly beyond 

 question. Mr. McLennan is perfectly familiar with the species, 

 having had opportunities of observing it in Virginia, where he 

 once lived for a time. He has also frequently kept it caged. 

 There is therefore no doubt of the Truro specimen being Mimus 

 polyglottos. Many will consider it impossible that the bird M^ould 

 wander so far north, and will no doubt say that it had merely 

 •escaped from confinement. This idea, however, cannot be har- 

 boured. Mr. McLennan examined it particularly and with an 

 expert's eye, in order to ascertain if such had been the case. " I 

 am convinced," he writes to me, " that it was not an escaped 

 cage-bird — in fact, I know it as certainl}^ as I can know any- 

 thing. Its plumage was unchafed, and its feet were perfectly 

 clean and not perch-marked. All birds which have been caged 

 for the shortest time, have the plumage rubbed on the outer 

 feathers of the wings and the ends of the tail-feathers, and the 

 feet also show very plainly the effects of confinement. To one 

 accustomed to handling birds, I do not think a mistake is 

 possible, and I have had as many as eighty birds caged at one 

 time." He tells me that he now feels he made a srreat mis- 



♦Chamberlain's Catalogue of Canadian Birds ; McIIwraith's Birds of Ontario. 

 4 



