242 Roberts, The Prot/ionotary Warbler in Minnesota. [^ 



The poison ivy {Rhus toxicodendron) is here a climbing vine, 

 while one hundred miles further north, it is but a low shrub. 

 Small fruits, notably cherries, and a more considerable variety of 

 grapes and apples than occur further north, are truly hardy under 

 the shelter of the high bluffs ; and the chestnut, flowering 

 dogwood, and trumpet creeper, can be induced to grow in cultiva- 

 tion in similar situations. An apple tree of the St. Lawrence 

 variety has been growing on the farm of Mr. Harris at La 

 Crescent for over twenty-six years, and is now a veteran with 

 trunk some eighteen inches in diameter. 



Doubtless other forms of life would bear equally clear testi- 

 mony in the same direction, but unfortunately, I am unable to call 

 them to an accounting at this time. 



It does not seem worth while to enter here upon an extended 

 account of the habits of the Golden Swamp Warbler as observed 

 in Minnesota, since it would be but a repetition of that which has 

 already been so ably and satisfactorily chronicled by Mr. William 

 Brewster, W. E. Loucks, and others. Suffice it to say that every- 

 where, with one curious exception, the birds were nesting in holes 

 excavated by the ubiquitous Downy Woodpecker. Nowhere did 

 we find inhabited nests placed in natural cavities as in crevices 

 or crannies behind loose bark, but from evidence afforded by one 

 or two old nests apparently of this species, such places are 

 apparently sometimes used. Given a flooded area where the 

 long since lifeless willows were standing gaunt and gray with 

 unsteady and crumbling trunks among the other less decrepit 

 forms and there the Prothonotaries were sure to be, often several 

 pairs in a tract of only a few acres. 



Not unfrequently 'small willow, maple, and birch stubs and the 

 dead and rotting trunks of larger trees fringing the edge of the 

 main river channel and marking the line of the heavy forest 

 behind were the homes of many couples. Often these stumps 

 were but mere shells four or five inches in diameter and project- 

 ing not more than three or four feet above the surface of the 

 water. Quite commonly they were thoroughly water-soaked, the 

 only dry thing about them being the pretty little nest with its 

 foundation of green moss bearing on its top the frail structure of 

 fine grass and bark. Occasionally the nests were placed higher 



