VoI '3i9 XVI ] Mousley, Birds of Hatley, Quebec. 483 



of only three miles can really make in the bird life of a place, as 

 well as in its flora. The more swampy nature of the country 

 round this latter residence, as I have already indicated elsewhere, 

 has put me in touch with birds and flowers that I rarely and in 

 many cases never came across in my old hunting grounds. Among 

 the birds might be cited the Nashville and Tennessee Warblers, 

 and of the wild flowers the orchids stand out prominently, no less 

 than a dozen new species having been added to my list, which now 

 stands at eighteen, or about a quarter of all the orchids known to 

 occur in eastern North America. My first visit to "the marsh" 

 was paid on October the fifteenth, when six Wilson's Snipe were 

 flushed and one Solitary Sandpiper seen. The conditions existing 

 at this date were very different from those of August the twentieth, 

 when the marsh might be said to be non-existent, there being hardly 

 a drain of water in it, and consequently none of the Limicolae were 

 seen. Now the whole of it was nothing but a sheet of water with 

 no mud beds whatever, the Snipe and Solitary Sandpiper being 

 found in the cat-tails round the margins, where little patches of 

 ground not entirely submerged gave them an opportunity of feeding. 

 Certainly this has been my very poorest year for Sandpiper records, 

 as, with the exception of the above one for the Snipe and Solitary 

 \ Sandpiper, I have only seen one Greater Yellow-legs, one Least 

 and a few Spotted Sandpipers, and these for the most part were 

 noted during my infrequent visits to " the marsh." The seventeenth 

 saw the last Myrtle Warbler, and I never remember having seen 

 less in the fall than this year. 



On the twenty-third a flock of about twenty to thirty Pine Sis- 

 kins were noted and remained in the district for some little time. 

 Nothing of further interest occurred until November the sixteenth, 

 when the first flock of Redpolls was seen and a week later two small 

 ones of Pine Grosbeaks, one in my garden and the other in the 

 woods three miles away, this latter consisting of seven birds, five 

 of which were highly plumaged males. On the twenty-sixth a 

 large flock of Canada Geese were reported as well as one on the 

 ninth, and I also received a letter from Mr. Greer telling me that 

 he had seen a single female Pine Grosbeak on the twenty-third 

 (the same date as I had observed them) and a flock of eight on the 

 following day, among which were two full plumaged males. He 



