92 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



off. The Masuippi has been open for some weeks ; and in 

 going to Sherbrooke last week, I observed large fragments of 

 ice swiftly floating down that rapid river, the St. Francis. 



C. — Notwithstanding the day has been so warm, now 

 that the sun is down, the air is chilly and even cold. — 

 Listen to the singular sound proceeding from yonder cedar 

 swamp. It is like the measured tinkle of a cow-bell, or 

 regular strokes upon a piece of iron quickly repeated. Now 

 it has ceased. • 



F. — There it is again. I will give you all the inform- 

 ation I can about it ; and that is very little. In spring, 

 that is, during the months of April, May, and the former 

 part of June, we frequently hear, after nightfall, the sound 

 you have just heard ; from its regularity it is usually thought 

 to resemble the whetting of a saw, and hence the bird from 

 which it proceeds is called the Saw-whetter. I say ^''the 

 bird," because, though I could never find any one who had 

 seen it, I have little doubt that it is a bird. I have asked 

 Mr. Titian Peale, the venerable Professor Nuttall, and other 

 ornithologists of Philadelphia, about it, but can obtain no 

 information on the subject of the author of the sound : it 

 seems to be — 



" Vox et praeterea nihil." 



Carver, in his amusing travels, mentions it as being heard 

 near Lake Superior, naming it, if I recollect rightly, the 

 Whetsaw. It may possibly be known, but I find nothing 

 of it in Wilson or Bonaparte. Professor Nuttall was ac- 

 quainted with the note, but told me plainly the bird was 

 unknown. I conjecture it may be some of the herons or 

 bitterns ; or, possibly, from a passage in Bonaparte's Omi- 



