Birds of Quebec. 159 
Mr. Chamberlain, one of the founders of the American 
Ornithological Union Club. I would be guilty of an 
injustice were I to fail noticing the numerous contributions 
to the daily press from a keen Quebec field naturalist, John 
T. Neilson, who has utilized the rare facilities his outdoor 
occupations as land surveyor afford him, to study the bird 
world. Canadian ornithology is also indebted to the late Dr. 
T. D. Cottle for a “ List of Birds found in Upper Canada,” 
in 1859; to H. Hadfield, “ Birds of Canada observed near 
Kingston during the Spring of 1858;” to A. Murray, “ Con- 
tributions to the Natural History of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany’s Territories,” 1858; to Professor J. R. Willis, ‘ List 
of Birds of Nova Scotia,” 1858; 1870, to J. F. Whiteaves, 
‘Notes on Canadian Birds;” 1873, to A. L. Adams, “ Field 
and Forest Rambles, with Notes and Observations on the 
Natural History of Eastern Canada;” to Dr. J. H. Garnier 
of Lucknow, to Prof. Macoun of Ottawa, and many others. 
The Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick, 
the Transactions of the Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club have 
proved useful auxiliaries to the cause of the natural sciences. 
* * * * * * * * 
Pantie 
It would be about as easy to depict a Canadian winter, 
without its snow-drifts, as it were to imagine the fleecy 
plains and solitary uplands of Canada in winter, without 
their annual visitors, the Snow-bunting—better known to 
our youth under the appropriate name of Snowbird (Plec- 
trophanes Nivalis.) 
In New England it is styled the Snowflake; “it comes 
and goes with these beautiful crystallisations, as if itself one 
of them, and comes at times only less thickly. The Snow- 
bird is the harbinger, and sometimes the follower, of the 
storm. It seems to revel, to live on snow, and rejoices in 
the northern blast, uttering, overhead, with expanded wing, 
its merry call, ‘ preete-preete,’ reserving, as travellers tell 
us, a sweet, pleasant song for its summer haunts, in the far 
north, where it builds its warm, compact nest on the ground, 
