1897] Young — Birds of the Magdalen Islands. 147 



passing throus^h the woods of spruce and fir, I heard the hermit- 

 thrush, and noticed two pair of golden-winged woodpeckers, 

 whose nest-holes were in the dead birch trees, which were 

 sparingly scattered amang the spruce. Near the sea shore I 

 came across a pair of rusty blackbirds, which were quite tame 

 and evidently breeding ;they apparently had young, but I could 

 not find the nest. In an alder thicket not far from the shore, 

 was a yellow warbler's nest, just completed, but without eggs, 

 the bird being on the nest. I saw several of these birds on the 

 Island, but they were not so plentiful as either the red-start or 

 black-poll warbler By the sea shore were several piping-])lovers, 

 and I found a nest well lined with broken pieces of shell, which 

 contained four eggs, incubation advanced. In a swampy place 

 not far off, a Savannah sparrow fluttered from my feet, and I saw 

 the nest containing three young birds, well hidden from view. 

 Close by, on the pond of brackish water, were several ducks, 

 red-breasted mergansers, and a pair of black ducks with seven 

 young, hatched about a week. Turning homeward, I met with 

 several white-winged cross-bills, and a young pine-grosbeak, 

 feeding on the buds of the spruce, which allowed me to approach 

 within four or five feet. 



June 19th. — To-day I walked through the spruce woods, 

 and in a tree some eight feet high, frightened a black-poll- 

 warbler from its nest, which contained five eggs, incubated a 

 few days. The nest was built in a bough two feet from the 

 ground, was quite bulky and substantial for the size of the bird, 

 composed of a few spruce twigs, moss and grass, lined with rootlets 

 and hair, and resembled the nest of the myrtle-warbler On the 

 way to the beach I saw a large nest on a fir-tree, which proved 

 to be a fox-sparrow's, with two eggs in it. This nest was four feet 

 from the ground, and was composed of much the same materials 

 as the black-poll warbler's : spruce twigs, grass, moss, and lined 

 with hair and fibres ; a very firm and compact structure. Near 



