24 THP; HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 



heron became fearless and tame, and in a month or less after 

 capture would answer a call of its name, " Bill," given on its first 

 frog feeding operations. The owner or his children, on finding a 

 frog or lizard, mouse, crayfish, or young ophidian in the fields, even 

 when a good distance intervened, would hold aloft a white handker- 

 chief and shout " Bill " at the top of the voice, and the crane would 

 fly straight to the objective point and gobble down the piscatorial or 

 amphibian food. The bird would evince alarm on hearing the 

 scream of the locomotive as a train passed on the near by railway, 

 but when the steam engine of an itinerant gang of grain thrashers 

 appeared and began its puff, puff, pufifing near the roosting place by 

 the barn, this, to heron ideas, partook too much of the marvellous, 

 and the pet bird, esteeming itself an entire solecism, took flight to 

 parts unknown and was seen no more by its erstwhile human asso- 

 ciates. A similar going off, as to the abrupt manner of it, was 

 recorded of a pet bittern that a Burford farmer of our acquaintance 

 once tamed so as to associate in his poultry flock, and which would 

 even walk into his kitchen and seize food from the dishes on the 

 table if permitted. As the autumn came on no apprehensions were 

 felt as to the pet proving a deserter from the seeming contentment 

 and fraternization in the poultry yard, but one fine Indian summer- 

 like afternoon, late in the month of October, (betaiirus lentiginosus), 

 being in the farm house, and the human inmates seated around, the 

 door being wide open, suddenly seemed to hear a call none else 

 could hear, and with a weird scream ran out of doors into mid 

 garden, soon taking a high circling flight skyward, and presently 

 getting his instinctive bearings steered off south-westwards, was 

 soon a vanishing speck on the sky, and from that hour to this was 

 seen nor heard of no more by Burfordites. Both the bittern and 

 the crane above mentioned had been allowed a free range about the 

 farms, and the difficulty of procuring them suitable food in winter 

 induced an expectancy of their migration southward in the fall. 



The autumn is proving a remarkably fine and warm one, and 

 there is an abundant return for the labors of the farmers. 



Frosts have been slight and infrequent, and many tender 

 vegetables are still looking green and luxuriant. Until quite 

 recently humming birds visited the morning glory flowers at the 



