OBSERVATIONS ON CANADIAN BIRDS. 7 
The same cause has led to considerable confusion among our short 
winged summer birds, these arriving among us about the end of the 
first week in May in their full summer plumage, and uttering their 
characteristic notes are easily identified, but when they return again 
from the north in September, accompanied by their young, the 
change they have undergone is so great that no one unacquainted 
with the subject would be able to recognize them. As an instance of 
this I will only mention the male of the Scarlet Tanager, whose brilliant 
plumage, so conspicuous in the woods during the summer months, as 
soon as the breeding season is over, becomes like that of the female: 
a plain dull green ; it is not then surprising that the earlier writers 
should have frequently described the same species twice under a 
a different name, indeed, in the absence of information from those 
who had opportunities of observing the birds while the changes 
were progressing, we do not see how it could have been otherwise. 
Wilson no doubt felt these difficulties keenly, when commencing his 
great work on American birds, and seems, in his writings, to long for 
the opportunity of solving his doubts by personal observation. When 
describing the Black-throated Blue wood-warbler, which belongs to 
the migratory class referred to, he takes occasion to reproach the 
Canadian people for their want of interest in these subjects ; he says, 
“‘T know little of this bird, it is one of those transient visitors which 
‘in the month of April pass through Pennsylvania on their way to the 
north; itis highly probable that they breed in Canada, but the 
summer residents among the feathered tribes, on that part of the 
Continent, are little known or attended to; the habits of the deer, the 
bear, and the beaver, are much more interesting to these good people, 
and for a good substantial reason too, because more lucrative, and unless 
there should arrive from England an order for a cargo ot skins of 
warblers and flycatchers sufficient to make them an object worth 
speculation, we are likely to know as little of them hereafter as at 
present.”’ Without doubting the truth of Wilson’s remarks at the 
time they were written, I am satisfied that they no longer hold true, 
as there are now many people in Canada, devoting both time and 
means, in acquiring the information he so much desired, and there 
are, in some of our Canadian Cities, collections which would have been 
of great service to him when arranging the material for the American 
ornithology. When estimating the amount of Wilson’s labors in 
this field of science, we should never overlook the peculiar difficulties 
