90 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
occasionally and in low and marshy grounds on the shores of this 
lake, and I have also seen it frequently in the neighbourhood of 
Ottawa. 
It feeds on the seeds of various grasses and weeds, and such 
insects as it can obtain at the season. Its call note is very soft and 
melodious, and I have heard the male bird in the early days of 
March utter a short but very sweet song. It is then just on the 
point of setting off on its migration northward and its plumage has 
begun to assume something of its summer brightness, the black 
tufts of feathers on the head and the crescent shaped patch of black 
on the throat of the male bird are then very conspicuous. 
Sometimes as early as the last week of February, though generally 
in the first warm days in March the cawing of the crows is heard 
for the first time, and their harsh’ voices sound pleasantly to our ears 
because they are associated with the commencing spring. 
It is true that occasionally in very mild winters one or two indi- 
viduals do sometimes remain in particular localities, but these are 
exceptions to the general rule and they may fairly be classed among 
our migratory birds. 
I have said that their voices sound pleasantly because they are 
associated with the coming spring, but for my own part, I confess, it 
is only at that particular season that I can listen to them with any 
degree of complacency. They are then doing good service in feeding 
upon noxious insects and vermin of many kinds, but as the spring 
advances and the various small birds begin to lay their eggs and 
hatch their young, the crow becomes the ruthless destroyer of both 
eggs and young, and scores of the eggs or young of our Song Spar- 
rows, Warblers, Thrushes and various other birds fall a prey to its 
voracious appetite. 
First among the arrivals in March of our smaller migratory birds 
is the Song Sparrow, Melospiza Fasciata, and its short but sweet 
song is the first to proclaim “‘ that the winter is over and gone, and 
the time of the singing of birds is come.” The time of its arrival, 
as L have noted it in various years, varies from the 16th to the 23rd 
of March, sometimes, in very backward springs, not until the first 
week in April. 
Almost at the same time with the Song Sparrow comes the Robin 
(Turdus Migratorius ), its cheery notes, whether heard from the top 
of some tall maple, or as it scuttles through the bushes of the shrub- 
