38 



THE ORNITHOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 



ground, ranging frona four to twenty 

 feet. The nest is always in a hardwood 

 timbered tract, and generally well con- 

 cealed by the foliage of the surrounding 

 branches. The outer part of the struct- 

 ure is made to conform much in hue to 

 the bark of the tree in which it is situ- 

 ated, and the inside usually contains 

 some horse hair. 



The full set of eggs is four. These 

 are of a fleshy-white hue, spotted on the 

 larger end with reddish brown spots. 

 The redstart does not appear to nest 

 more than once in the season. Its nest- 

 ing period is the last week of May and 

 the early part of June. The nest is so 

 often made the depository for one or 

 more eggs of the cow-bird, that a full 

 set of its eggs can not often be obtained. 



Though distributed generally over the 

 Province of Ontario, from the Ottowa 

 to LakeErie, during the summer season; 

 yet its haunts are very locally confined, 

 and it is found only in high, hardwood 

 timbered woods. Nor is it a pioneer bird, 

 for it is not until much of tlie original 

 forest has been removed that it makes 

 its appearance in any district. It was 

 not observed in this vicinity until com- 

 paratively recent yearti, though it is now 

 one of the most abundant of our wood- 

 land warblers. . . 



During my nine years residence in 

 North V/allace, I failed to notice it, and 

 it was not till our family had been set- 

 tled for several j'ears in the backwoods 

 of Peel — the home of my early clays — 

 that it came under my observation. I 

 well remember with what pleasure I 

 discovered and gazed vipon the first nest 

 of this species I ever saw. It was plac- 

 ed in the fork of a slender maple sapling, 

 ten or twelve feet from the ground, and 

 in what then seemed far back in the high 

 woods, a mile from our home. 



Early in June. ISOO, after an absence 

 of twenty-five years, in conapany with 

 two of my children, I again visited this 

 vicinity, and among other objects, hoped 

 to secure some sets of eggs in those woods 



where I had so often rambled, and stud- 

 ied bird life near the home of my boy- 

 hood years. But as we approached the 

 vicinity, how changed was the scenery 

 that met my anxious gaze? Fenced 

 fields of growing grain and pasture now 

 occupied the greater part of the land 

 where once tha forest stood; and over 

 these fields the killcleer-plover, a species 

 unknown to my early life, uttered its 

 varied cries. In the remnant of the 

 woods further to the north, we took a 

 hurried ramble. Here the song of many 

 birds, no doubt the descendants of those 

 that used to delight me in by-gone days, 

 fell upon our ears; but the luiderwood 

 was gone, and with it the redstart, and 

 most of the warblers. For a short time 

 I sat down upon a fallen log, and as 

 recollections of the past crowded back 

 to my memory I would have wept but 

 the fountain of my tears was dried. 

 How rapid seemed the flight of time, as • 

 though it had passed at a bound from 

 the morning of the day to the middle of 

 the afternoon. Noteing that our limited 

 time for this ramble, was fast passing 

 away, I arose and hurried onward. Out 

 of the wood, over the fields, and down 

 by the banks of the creek, where the 

 song sparrows and the sandpipers still 

 followed their varied avocations as in 

 days of old; but around our homestead 

 there were few objects to remind me of 

 my early days, or the once existance 

 af those I had loved and lost. Nor in 

 any other woods did I see or hear any 

 evidence of the once common and ever 

 beautiful redstart. 



It is singular how little warmth is 

 necessary to encourage these earlier 

 flowers to put forth I It would seem as 

 if some influence must come on in ad- 

 vance under ground and get things ready, 

 so that when the outside temperature 

 is propitious, they at once venture out. 

 — Burroughs. 



The world belongs to him who has 

 seen it. — Lubbock. 



vmmi 



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