^"uiw'."] PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM 599 



River; Little Bo^gy Creek ; Uuck Moiintaiu, breeding; Kat Portage, 

 October (Tbonipsoii), Shell liiver : 1885, first seeu, a pair, on May 

 G; next seeu, twenty-one, on May 19; a transient visitant (Calcutt). 

 East of Lake Winnipeg (on Nelson River), till September 15 (Blakis- 

 ton). Cumberland House, Jnue 4, 1827 : A female sitting on seven 

 eggs (Ricliardson). 



July 6, 1882, Shell River: This evening our camp was on the edge of 

 that yawning crack in the globe at the bottom of which runs the Shell. 

 As I walked along tlie edge, watching the setting of a red-hot sun that 

 was sinking amidst clouds of purple fire, a small bird flew up from 

 the gray woods, now in deep shadow, to the antlers of a dead tree, in 

 full glare of the sun, and stirred within me a hundred latent memories 

 with a song I had not. heard for years. For a minute or so lie sang ; then 

 dived down into the woods, again to be heard faintly and seeu no 

 more. 



This is a song 1 have been familiar with from childhood ; but f have 

 never seen the singer close at hand, and have fonnd no one who could 

 tell me its name. 1 am now satisfied that it is not, as I was told by 

 one, the Goldencrowned Thrush. I could have shot the bird on this 

 occasion and so have gratified my longing to know, but a gentler feel- 

 ing restrained my hand until it was too late. 



On June 19, 1883, I Cound the nest of the i)eabody while wandering 

 with a young friend in a brush slashing wherein were still a few stand- 

 ing trees. In a more than usually open part a lieavy Idack spruce and 

 a- bright silver birch were wrestling together like two giant athletes. 

 About the feet of the wrestlers were beautiful spear shaped calla, leaves 

 in abundance, growing through masses of decomposed twigs — a tangle 

 of the living and the dead — and from among these, in a drier spot, 

 sprang the peabody's mate. The nest was a deep cup sunken in the 

 ground among the black inoss and decayed twigs. It was lined with 

 black fibers, which made it more like its surroundings. The four eggs 

 were mottled with a soft purplish gray. 



October 7: Once more in the Shell River Gorge, where first in this 

 country I heard the peabody. It was dark when we arrived, and a 

 gloomy, cold autumn night. Except the rusliing of the river and the 

 hooting of an owl, the only sound is the soft whistling of the peabody. 



This bird is so well known as a night singer that in many parts he is 

 called the" nightingale," and I shall not be surprised to find that ho 

 also has an air song, and is therefore entitled to take rank as a singer 

 of the first order. 



May 15, 1884, heard a Peabody singing a song like this: 



Oil clic eliiiii i iiaw kaniaw ha.sish. * * * This bird visits us in the spring and 

 leaves us iu the end of September. It feeds on ilies and worms; builds a nesc with 



