THE NIDIOLOGIST. 



87 



told me that nearly twenty years ago he 

 was camped down there with some other 

 half-breeds, when one of the men jumped 

 to his feet in excitement and pointed tow- 

 ards the east, and there he saw a sight that 

 he will never forget. On the brow of yon- 

 der hill (pointing to a ridge three miles off) 

 was a black, moving mass of Buffaloes. He 

 said there were upwards of two thousand, 

 and they were coming straight towards their 

 camp down in the valley. The four men 

 at once hurried up the slope, which lies 

 east of the farm, to try and get out of the 

 way of the Buffaloes, and they expected to 

 see their tent trampled under the feet of 

 the animals; but instead of coming along 

 the valley where the railway is now built 

 the foremost Buffaloes took to the water 

 and swam across a part that was not more 

 than half a mile wide. Sanderson said it 

 was a beautiful sight to see the Buffaloes 

 swimming across the lake, and they esti- 

 mated 2000 Buffalo passed before them. 



It is rather singular that this same man 

 should be in at the death of the last Buffaloes 

 killed on the prairies on the South Sas- 

 katchewan seven years ago, the heads of 

 which are now at Morley, and valued at 

 $200 each by the owner. 



(ZI3 be Continued.') 



>-»-, 



NESTING OF THE MAGNOLIA 

 WARBLER, 



At Stephentown, New York, with Notes on the 

 Chewink, Yellow-winged Sparrow, Hermit 

 and Wood Thrushes. 



"Are you sure the Magnolia Warbler 

 breeds in your immediate vicinity ? It 

 seems strange to find this northern species 

 and the Hermit Thrush recorded as breed- 

 ing in the same locality with the Wood 

 Thrush, Chewink, and Yellow-winged 

 Sparrow. ' ' 



Thus wrote Dr. C. Hart Merriam, under 

 date of March 26, 1890. 

 • Soon after I sent my list of breeding 

 birds to the Department of Agriculture. 

 It was with pleasure that I was able to 

 confirm the record in my list, by stating 



that I had myself taken a positively iden- 

 tified nest and eggs of the Magnolia War- 

 bler in this locality. 



It does seem strange to find Dendroica 

 maculosa and the Hermit Thrush ( Turdus 

 oonalaschkcE pallasii), another northern spe- 

 cies, breeding here in the same immediate 

 locality with such species as the Chewink, 

 Yellow-winged Sparrow, and Wood Thrush. 

 However, such is the case, as I have taken 

 eggs of all the above-mentioned birds with- 

 in three miles of this village. 



Proximity to the Berkshire Hills gives 

 this locality an altitude which, combined 

 with the character of our forests — contain- 

 ing tracts of spruce, pine, and hemlock — 

 offers attractive breeding grounds to sev- 

 eral birds of the Canadian avifauna. 



The Magnolia, or Black and Yellow 

 Warbler, is a rare summer resident in this 

 locality. Early in June, 1886, it was my 

 good fortune to find a pair nesting. They 

 had chosen for their summer home a wood- 

 land corner on the higher ground above a 

 timbered swamp. Herein past years some 

 of the timber had been cut, leaving little 

 clearings among the tall pines, hemlocks, 

 and deciduous trees. They were now cov- 

 ered with scrub hemlocks and deciduous 

 bushes. And just across an old wood-road 

 from one of these bush-grown clearings the 

 nest was located. It was about six feet 

 from the ground, on one of the lower limbs 

 of a hemlock sapling, and was loosely con- 

 structed of fine hemlock twigs, weed-stems 

 and a few scraps of yellow birch and wild 

 grape-vine barks; lined with fine rootlets 

 and horse-hair. The eggs — four in num- 

 ber — were creamy-white, richly marked 

 with spots and specks of reddish-brown, 

 pale lilac and umber, confluent, in the form 

 of wreaths about the larger ends, the re- 

 mainder of the ^%<g sparsely specked. 



The Hermit Thrush, whose soul-awaken- 

 ing song has been described by so many 

 gifted writers, is common here in summer; 

 and many times, amid the gloom of wooded 

 ravine or in the semi-darkness beneath the 

 forest canopy of timbered swamp, I have 



