TENTH ORDINARY MEETING. 97 



anxiety for the protection of its eggs 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 fi-om 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 

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

 a,bout Lake Simcoe, but only occasionally, and as a general rule they 

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

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

 May. 



Following close upon the ai'rival of the Scarlet Tanager, and often 

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

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

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

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

 insects which it catches on the wing ; but when the cherries are ripe 

 in the gardens and orchards, it often approaches 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 with us until 

 the middle of September. 



Yet another visitor, whose gorgeous plumage quickly attracts 

 attention to its ariival 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 male renders 

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



