6 EiFRiG, The Spring Migration, 1907, at Ottawa, Ont. [fan 



right about the houses, etc. And many were found dead. Two 

 Tree Swallows, one Brown Creeper, one Canadian, and several 

 Blackburnian AYarblers were brought to the writer, having been 

 found dead. The last seem to have been the principal sufferers. 

 Three of them were sent to me by a friend from Renfrew County, 

 who had found them dead. Then a strange performance on the 

 part of a Robin was noticed. A Myrtle "Warbler was in its last 

 agonies, on a bridge through a farmer's swamp land, when a Robin 

 came and tried to carry it off. Why? 



At High Falls, Labelle County, Quebec, 50 miles northeast of 

 Ottawa, the same story could be heard. Many warblers were 

 found dead along the Lievre River, also at other places. On being 

 questioned, quite a number of the children of a school there, re- 

 ported having found from one to five dead birds, without having 

 looked for them. Several were brought to the museum at Ottawa, 

 etc. Now, it is safe to assume that for each dead bird found, a 

 hundred or a thousand were not found, so the destruction of bird 

 life, especially of warblers, must have been appalling. 



Some curious changes in the habits of several species were also 

 brought about by the unfavorable food and weather conditions. 

 If a person had begun to study warblers in this vicinity this spring, 

 he would have come to the conclusion that warblers were terrestrial 

 or even water-loving birds. And he would have had the facts all in 

 his favor, for a while at least. On May 20, during a walk of about 

 a mile, I saw about 15 Yellow Warblers, all on or near the ground 

 on old weed stalks, some never quitting the edge of pools of water. 

 Later I noticed this many times of the Mniotilfa varia, D. black- 

 burfiice and D. maculosa and Wilsonia canadensis. Of the Cape 

 May Warbler, a species rather common here about May 23, but 

 found in spruce only in a few spots, I saw only one last May, and 

 that in a dirty dog-pound! The Myrtle Warbler would certainly 

 have been classed as a swamp bird pure and simple, for it could 

 always be seen over open water in swamps, etc., perching on bushes 

 or old cattails and darting after the few passing gnats and moths 

 in true flycatcher style. The above-mentioned tameness, in most 

 cases really weakness, will probably not be noticed again soon. 

 On May 4, after that snowstorm, several Hermit Thrushes hopped 

 on to the veranda of a house and up to within three feet of two 

 persons standing inside the window, in plain view of the birds. 



