13 



anxiety for the protection of its ..ggs or young, flying in front of the 

 prying visitor or tumbling along the ground as if wounded after the 

 manner of the partridge with wings and tail outspread, it endeav- 

 ours by every artifice to attract the unwelcome intruder from the 

 neighbourhood. 



It is one of those birds occasionally selected by the Crow Bunting 

 as a foster mother for its young, and not unfrequently the single egg 

 of the latter may be found deposited among the five or six eggs of 

 the Warbler. 



Of all our summer visitors the most brilliant in plumage, almost 



tropical in its character is the Scarlet Tanager {Pyranga Rubra), 



which arrives from the south from the 10th to the 15th of May. 



*The male bird is too well known to require description, but it may 



not be generally known that the female has none of the gorgeous 



► colouring of the cock bird, but is olive green above and yellowish 



beneath, wings and tail brown, edged with olive colour, and the young 



males for the first season are colored like the females, but generally 



^ exhibit more or less of red feathers among the greenish ones. I have 



aRmet with the nest and young of this handsome bird in the woods 



^, about Lake Simcoe, but only occasionally, and as a general rulf they 



j^seem to disappear from this part of Ontario like so many of their 



IjJ' companions, the Warblers, after a very brief stay in the early part of 



" May. 



Following close npon the arrival of the Scarlet Tanager, and often 

 I seen with it, comes that beautiful bird, the Crimson-breasted Gros- 

 beak (Zamelodia Ludoviciana). In general it is a shy bird, keeping 

 Imuch in the forest, where it feeds mostly upon the seeds ef the birch 

 ^aud alder, the tender buds and blossoms of the trees, and upon 

 ■t-rinsects which it catches on the wing ; but when the cherries are ripe 

 ;^in the gardens and orchards, it often a})i)roache3 our dwellings, and 

 •certainly repays us for the little fruit it consumes by the delicious 

 -softness and melody of its notes. They are very numerous in the 

 woods at Lake Simcoe, breeding there, and remaining witli us until 

 " the middle of September. 



Yet another visitor, whose gorgeous plumage quickly attracts 



(.attention to its arrival following the Tanagers and Grosbeaks, is the 



beautiful Baltimore Oriole [Icterus Galbula). Gliding from branch to 



branch in search of insects, the brilliant livery of the niale renders 



.him a conspicuous object, even if his clear, mellow whistling notes, 



