NOTES ON CANADIAN ORNITHOLOGY. 341 



of Europe, is very common, and its power of wing marvellous. 

 Rising almost vertically, by spurts of a hundred feet or more at 

 a time, the bird would seem to climb to a considerable altitude, 

 and then, in the well-known manner of its race, dive headlong, 

 and so swiftly that its rushing could be plainly heard, especially 

 just previously to the sudden turn which concluded the descent, 

 when the sound " whong" was produced so loudly as to be audible 

 when the bird was distant halfway to the vanishing point. The 

 frequent cry of the bird, " pee-opp," can also be heard at a great 

 distance. The Nightjars were abroad from four o'clock till late 

 in the evening, flying extravagantly all that time. Probably no 

 falcon could do as much. 



One species which the Sparrows have not displaced from the 

 tree-lined streets is the Yellow Warbler, Dendrceca cestiva, which 

 was very abundant, flitting about in the manner of our Willow 

 Warbler, from which species the female could not easily be dis- 

 tinguished. The male has much brighter tints : his breast is of 

 an intense deep yellow, which colour seems to glow through the 

 olive-green of his back ; his eye-streak is conspicuous. On his 

 breast are some longitudinal striations, of a faint brown, half 

 indistinct, as though they represented a constitutional trait 

 developed by the great heat of the Canadian summer. A male 

 flitted about for some minutes within two yards of my head. Its 

 nest is placed high in the trees. The call-note of the species is a 

 short unmodulated chirp, like that of the young Willow Warbler. 

 The song consists of four or five notes very rapidly uttered, and 

 closely like the first four or five in the song of the Willow 

 Warbler. Sometimes a note or two would be added, and these 

 were always delivered slower than the others, and were much 

 more like the ordinary whistled notes of the Willow Warbler. 

 I heard this curious variation in Vancouver (B. C.) as well as in 

 Montreal. The insect food of the species seemed to be of a kind 

 smaller than that of the Sparrows, which, however, often took 

 large insects on the wing, as they do in England. 



I heard a small greenish bird, apparently a warbler, singing 

 in the tree-tops a song exactly like the sibilous strain of the 

 Wood Warbler. 



On May 27th I arrived at Ottawa. A few Chimney Swallows, 

 Hirundo pelasgia, apparently a family party, were flying over my 

 hotel. This species has much of the general appearance of 



