THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 57 
description, but chilled, and flowers and leaves embrowned with the 
night frosts of late fall ; but a few roots were dug up and carried 
away in hope of a future successful growth. Soon afterwards, on 
crossing a pasture, a shore lark arose in front of us and alighting on 
a rail fence near by poured from its throat its few rather monoton- 
ous, but not “ incisive ” chirrups (some one has compared the notes 
of the shore lark to the sound made by the rapid working of the two 
blades of a pair of scissors.) Ona clay hill a short distance from the 
bog where the itex prinos grew, were seen some low trees of the 
Hawthorn (C. Coccinea ?) On these the haws were ripe more than 
a month ago and only a few more remained on the branches. In the 
adjoining bog another shrub closely resembling the hawthorn, was 
once very abundant, but seems likely soon to become extinct in this 
locality. ‘The shrub here alluded to is a Spire prunifolia® ; this and 
crategeus seem to form the point of contact in the two genera. It 
has been said that in the natural arrangement, two species, one of 
each of the two adjoining genera should be zz ‘touch, and from this 
point divergent species may dranch off with gradually increasing dif- 
ferentiation, but still with some affinities of the ancestral type (as in 
this instance the Rosaceous characteristics.) There are many noted 
examples of this close, almost merging, kinship in some of our dis- 
tinct (according to technicologists) genera of wild plants. 
Whilst gathering our apples this fall my son pointed out to me a 
small deserted bird’s nest. The nest was very small, seemingly not 
much too large for a humming bird’s ; it was probably the summer 
home of one of the small fly-catcher’s, most likely of ‘‘ Musicapa Zuti- 
cilla,” as that species was frequently noticed in the environs in the sum- 
mer months. The nest was in good preservation and seemed fresh 
and new. ‘The external workmanship was so perfect that the nest was 
difficult to perceive, unless by the closest scrutiny, that there was a 
bird nest there at all. The form seemed to be only a slight lump 
or swelling of growing woody substance on the fork of a lower small 
branch of the apple tree on which the nest was situated,—the archi- 
tect had with much pains and good taste (!) placed bits of linchen 
and gray moss among the interstices of the plaited grass fibres 
which composed the external portion of the structure, and the work 
put one in mind of the efforts of a painter who imitates in ochre and 
*In recent books this is classed as Pyrus arbutifolia. 
