6l4 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



A rare summer resident in Manitoba. Only mentioned by a 

 few observers. {Thompson-Seton.) A rare summer resident at 

 Avenue, Manitoba, arrived May i8th, 1903, and last seen August 

 2 1 St. {Norman Criddle.) A rare summer migrant at Indian Head, 

 Assa. Only one individual seen in the spring of 1892, on June 

 8th. Only one individual was seen at Medicine Hat, Assa., in 

 the spring of 1894. {Spreadborough.) I found the nest of this 

 species north of Waterloo, Ont., May 22nd, 1899; nest in a hemlock 

 five feet from the ground. {W. Raine.) One was taken at Ox- 

 ford House, Keewatin, July 3rd, 1901. {E.A.Prebles.) 



Breeding Notes. — Here the first nest that claimed my atten- 

 tion was one placed on the side of a small birch tree where a tuft 

 of twigs grew out from the ground. I soon reached and secured 

 this; it contained three fresh eggs; these were of a white hue with 

 dottings and patches of a brownish or flesh colour, the nest itself 

 being composed of fragments of bark, rootlets and hair; I did not 

 then note the owner, nor could I at that time have identified the 

 species, but I gave them a name and placed them in my collection. 

 Two years after — June, 1879— I was out in a piece of swampy 

 woods south of the town, when my attention was arrested by the 

 actions of a small bird which was constructing a nest among some 

 leafy twigs growing on the small horizontal branch of a little 

 water-elm, about three feet out from the trunk and ten feet off 

 the ground. Some days after I viewed this nest again, it then 

 contained one egg, and three days more when I revisited it, I 

 found the bird at home sitting on three eggs, which I inferred 

 were the full set, and that incubation had begun. When this bird 

 flew off her nest and took a position on a branch near-by, uttering 

 a few chip-like notes, I identified her as a female bay-breasted 

 warbler. The nest and eggs were exactly like those above de- 

 scribed, and of course both belonged to the same species. Some 

 days after this I found another nest of this bird in a neighbouring 

 lowland wood; this was placed in the top of a small hemlock 

 about fourteen feet from the ground, constructed of similar 

 materials, and contained four eggs. Since then no nest of this 

 species with eggs has come under my observation, but I have 

 noted a few others in which young had apparently been raised. 

 One of these was on the side of. a small cedar where a little 

 branch grew out, and about four feet off the ground; another, 

 evidently a new nest, but after the breeding season when I found 



