148 Swales & Taverner, Birds of Southeastern Michigan. [ April 



every dead and dry mullen stalk had several of their little blue 

 forms upon it. There seemed to be hundreds in sight at one time. 

 They did not appear in anything like such numbers about Detroit, 

 and we did not see more that a couple or so at a time and generally 

 three or four made a day's record. The last one was seen October 

 21 at Rockwood, though Mr. Taverner saw a pair taken at Ypsi- 

 lanti Jan. 11, 1907. The occurrence of these birds seems to 

 have been pretty general this fall and we have reports of them 

 through lower Ontario and adjacent portions of this State. A 

 comparison of the old records of Mr. Swales with those of Mr. 

 Saunders of London shows a strong similarity of abundance that 

 no other species that w T e have compared in this way has revealed. 

 It indicates that the movements of this species are not so excen- 

 trically erratic as some others, or, rather, the same causes that 

 move the winter visitors of southern Ontario also brings ours 

 down. There is, then, a connection between the Red-breasted 

 Nuthatches of Ontario and Michigan that is not evident in other 

 species. Indeed, from the study of the winter migrants of the two 

 sections, as a whole, we are confident that their winter migrations 

 are entirely independent of each other. There is a strong similarity 

 just along the boundary between the tw T o countries but it does not 

 extend to any distance inland. 



