lyo JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



birds generally are a sort of corollary to forest garniture. Apple and 

 fruit orchards are also more sparse northwards from Guelph than is 

 the case in the south-western counties of Ontario, and it is well- 

 known that to a host of birds of the thrush and warbler families, as 

 well as the cuckoos and finches, the orchard is a natural habitation. 

 Even the j^ellow-finch and the warbling vireos, so ubiquitous in other 

 counties, were here conspicuous by their entire absence. The road- 

 side herbage seemed also to be of a less varied character than that 

 to which we had been accustomed. Even the blue-weed {Echhim 

 vulgare) which had in such large measure taken possession of waste 

 places and railway embankments in so many places, had only jusL 

 got a precarious footing here. 



The Duke of Argyll remarked on the absence and assumed 

 musical inferiority of the song-birds of North America. It seems 

 to be admitted that our songsters are more shy and elusive than 

 those of Western Europe or Britain. Is it not probable that such a 

 condition of aifairs may be attributable in part to the absence of 

 hedges of hawthorn and other berry-bearing shrubs by which fields 

 are all but universally fenced and surrounded, and which form such 

 a conspicuous feature in the British landscape ? Our song-birds are 

 in number legion, and many of them have exquisitely melodious pow- 

 ers of song, but are only to be seen and heard in the most secluded 

 recesses of forests and swamps ; and years of residence and close 

 observation are necessary to gain a familiar acquaintance with them. 

 Food and shelter from hawks and similar predatory enemies are the 

 necessities of existence to these, and it is possible that if the broad' 

 bosom of Ontario should ever be marked and adorned by growing 

 fences and tangled thickets (as of the dog-rose and honeysuckle), 

 warblers of many species would come in throngs to sing and enliven, 

 our dwelling places. 



In the vicinity of Elora several species of plants, new to us and 

 never met with in Brant County by us, were observed, to wit : On 

 the sides of the rocky precipices about the river valley at Elora, one 

 of the most interesting species of fern is the Rock brake {Pteris 

 gracilis or atropurpurea). In its general aspect this does not 

 much resemble the common ferns, but the fruit dots are borne on 

 veins of the frond near the margin. 



In the woods bordering the rocky chasm, Aspidium acrostic- 

 hoides a.nd Asplenium ihalicteroides were common, and Adiaritiim peda- 



