106 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
visit our part of the celestial vault as the phenomenon is 
recorded as being of most frequent occurrence in these latitudes 
shortly before or after the period of the vernal and autumnal 
equinoxes. There were, however, during the past winter 
numerous occurrences of the parhelia or mock suns during the 
monthof February. ‘These are usually noticeable in clear cold 
weather when the sun is only a few degrees above the horizon, 
either in morning or evening, and are popularly associated in 
the minds of our farmers as indications and accompaniments 
of extreme cold; the luminous spots, termed ‘‘sun dogs,’’ are 
faintly tinted with the prismatic colours, and are by many 
thought to be caused by the sun’s rays being reflected at a 
particular angle from numerous particles of snow above the 
usual cloud altitudes in our atmosphere. These mock suns cer- 
tainly were seen with most frequency during the mornings and 
evenings of the zero temperatures of the month of February. 
A neighbor boy a few days ago brought to me a screech 
owl, that he said he just killed as the tyrant raptore was feed- 
ing on the body of a pet pigeon; the boy said that three or 
four of the pigeons had been previously victimized this winter 
by the same owl or by its confreres. Thescreecher was plump 
in condition and in the perfection of plumage, back or all 
upper parts of a bright reddish brown tinge, breast and 
under parts symetrically barred with greyish brown and white. 
The sheltering rendezvous of the screech owl’s family party 
was hunted for and discovered in a hollow tree trunk on the 
bush portion of the farm; the pigeons were sheltered in the 
barn belonging to the boy’s father 
Last autumn the handsome variety of grey squirrels were 
observed to be more numerous in our sugar bushes hereabout 
than for many years past, but unfortunately these interesting 
tree climbers were unsparingly persecuted to death by amateur 
shooters to the annihilation point, and there seems to be no 
effectual means of putting an end to these regretable practices. 
