TAVERNER AND SWALES ON POINT PELEE BIRDS. 123 



Rough-winged Swallow. Aug. 24-27, 1907; Aug. 15-16, 

 1908. 



Purple Finch. Sept. 19-Oct. 14, 190G. 



The above classification is, of course, loose and arbitrary, but 

 is sufficient, and is mainly intended to call attention to certain 

 facts pointing to the importance of Pelee as a migration route 

 that might otherwise pass unobserved in the general list. An- 

 other fact, not strictly ornithological, but bearing on this same 

 subject, struck us as of peculiar interest. Each September we 

 have witnessed great gatherings of the common Milkweed or 

 Monarch Butterfly, Anosia plexippus. They gather on the 

 trees in hundreds. September 12, 1905, we found a cottonwood 

 on the east beach whose lee was so covered with them as to ap- 

 pear red instead of green. In 1907 we noted in company with 

 them large numbers of Papilw cresphontes and P. troilits. The 

 Monarch is a well known migrant, but the other two are not, as 

 we are aware, supposed to migrate at all. However all of these 

 species were almost invariably observed flying in a most 

 determined manner out the point ; and on fine days there was 

 a constant stream of them starting out from the end of the 

 Point and making their way towards the opposite shore, fol- 

 lowing the same route taken by the majority of the bird mi- 

 grants. 



Another fact that has been well brought out by the work on 

 the Point among the waders, the departure of the adults before 

 the juveniles. The earlier birds of this class in the fall are al- 

 most invariably old birds, the birds of the year arriving general- 

 ly just as the former are leaving or sometimes after they are 

 gone. Thus, the only time we have found adult Sander ling 

 and Semipalmated Plover in fall was Aug. 15, 1908. Both 

 these species, previous years, but seasonally late in date, have 

 been common but all have been juveniles. Up to the end of 

 August the greater percentage of the Black-bellied Plover seen 

 are old birds. From the first of September on, such are rare 

 and the juveniles common. 



It is also evident that the fall migrations commence a good 

 deal earlier than is usually suspected. The first movement in 

 this direction to be detected is the arrival of the first shore birds 



