132 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



incubating. Several days afterward we visited the spot to notice 

 proceedings, when lo ! nest and eggs had been destroyed, and we 

 were informed by a bystander, who had been working near, that he 

 had seen and chased a mink running away with a ruffed grouse in 

 its jaws. . He said the bird looked so big, and its captor so small, 

 that the incident made him think of a cow carrying a haystack away 

 on its head and horns. 



(A line or two by way of addenda to the few remarks about 

 " the Canadian otter " in the last communication.) 



Nearly fifty years ago it was a common incident to find the end 

 surface of the planks of the bridges of our roadways every morning 

 besoiled by the dejecta of the otter. These dejecta were mainly 

 composed of the bones of the sunfish and similar small denizens of 

 the inland streams of that period. [We, in common with every 

 traveller at that period, have seen many of those heaps of excrement 

 on the road bridges' edge, and on enquiry were invariably assured 

 that they were the focacal matter of the otter.] The otters seem to 

 have had a habit of sitting on the edge of the bridges, and spring- 

 ing therefrom at fish appearing on the surface of the water, A num- 

 ber of people, on whose word we place full confidence, asserted that 

 they had many times, on moonlight nights, seen the otters plunge 

 in the water on the approach of man or team on these occasions. 

 We, ourselves, remember seeing what were termed " otter slides," 

 down the snow-covered slanting banks of the creeks about the same 

 period. These " slides " resembled tracks that might be made by 

 drawing a small round log through the deep snow, and there were 

 generally spots near where the swiftness of the current had pre- 

 vented the streams freezing entirely over. 



It was a tradition among hunters that there were but few dogs 

 bold enough to attack the otter, who, it was averred, had a double 

 row of grinder teeth, and could use them with murderous power on 

 his canine or other assailants. 



Note. — The visits of the large flocks of snow buntings have of late been 

 less frequent than was the case a month ago. Last Friday (24th instant), 

 when the thaw and sleet storm was raging, or at its height, a large flock 

 of the birds fluttered and hovered about our fields for an hour or more, oc- 

 casionally alighting at the edge of some of the flooded depressions in the 



