■292 BIRDS OF ONTARIO. 



The first account we have of the nest and eggs of this species 

 appears in the Auk, Vol. V., page 113. It is given b}^ Mr. John 

 Swinbourne, of Springerville, Arizona. Here is an exti-act: "On the 

 5th of June, 1884, while looking out for anything of ornithological 

 interest in a thickly wooded canon some fifteen miles west of the 

 little town of Springerville, Apache County, Arizona, my attention 

 was attracted by a bird which I did not know, flying off its nest in 

 the top of a thick willow bush. Having climbed up to the nest and 

 ascertained that it contained three eggs, I returned to the i-anch. 

 Next day I visited the canon with my shotgun, and finding the 

 number of eggs in the nest had not increased, concealed myself close 

 by, and after a long wait succeeded in procuring the female as she 

 flew from the nest. At that time I knew so little about American 

 birds or their eggs that I took no eggs except when I could authen- 

 ticate them by procuring the female bird. 



" The nest was a comparatively slight structure, rather flat in 

 shape, composed of small sticks and roots, lined with finer portions of 

 the latter. The eggs, three in number, were of a clear greenish 

 ground color, blotched with pale brown. They were fresh. The 

 nest was placed about fifteen feet from the ground, in the extreme 

 top of a thick willow bush. The slight carion, with a few willow 

 bushes in its centre bordering a small stream, lies in the midst of 

 very dense pine timber, at an altitude of about 7,000 feet, as far as I 

 can judge." 



It will be noticed that the foregoing took place in 1884, but it 

 was not published till 1888. In 1887, Mr. W. E. Br3^ant found a 

 nest, of which he published an account in the " Bull. Cal. Acad. Sci." 

 for that year. Thus, though Mr. Swinbourne was the first to find 

 and identify the nest and eggs, Mr. Bryant's account of the one he 

 found was first published. 



The history of the species in Ontario remained as given above until 

 December 19th, 1890, when a boy brought me a pair which he said 

 he had shot from a flock he saw near the shore of Hamilton Bay. 

 He described where he had found them, and I knew at once that it 

 was a most likely place for the birds to be — the rough, steep bank of 

 the bay, grown up with red cedars, close to the Roman Catholic 

 cemetery, where many of the same trees were cultivated for orna- 

 ment. In the afternoon K. C. Mcllwraith visited the locality, and 

 found a small flock feeding on the berries of the red cedar. 



Sunday intervened, but on Monday I was there and was delighted 

 to see a flock of twenty-five or thirty (juite at home on the bank. 



