IQQ BLACK-THROATED WAXWING. 



the common juniper, which abounds in those places." In a note, he further 

 states: — "I observed a large flock, consisting of at least three or four hundred 

 individuals, on the banks of the Saskatchewan at Carlton House, early in 

 May 1827. They alighted in a grove of poplars, settling all on one or two 

 trees, and making a loud twittering noise. They stayed only about one hour 

 in the morning, and were too shy to allow me to approach within gunshot." 



I am informed by Mr. Townsend, who has spent about four years in the 

 Columbia river district and on the Rocky Mountains, that he did not observe 

 there a single bird of this species. In the autumn of 1832, whilst rambling 

 near Boston, my sons saw a pair, which they pursued more than an hour, 

 but without success. The most southern locality in which I have known it 

 to be procured, is the neighbourhood of Philadelphia, where, as well as on 

 Long Island, several were shot in 1830 and 1832. The ^specimens from 

 which I made the figures of the male and female represented in the plate, 

 were given to me by my friend Thomas M'Culloch of Pictou, in Nova 

 Scotia, who procured several others in the winter of 1S34. The following 

 account of the affection displayed by one towards its companion, with which 

 he has also favoured me, will be found highly interesting. 



"During the winter of 1834, many species of the northern birds were 

 more than usually abundant in the province of Nova Scotia, being driven, no 

 doubt, from their customary places of resort by the cold which was very 

 intense at the commencement of the season. Large flocks of the Loxia 

 Enucleator appeared in every part of the country, while the Fringilla 

 Linaria, of which we had not seen a single specimen for upwards of two 

 years, could be shot at almost any hour of the day, in the streets of Pictou; 

 and we were often told of birds being seen, which from the description we 

 could not recognise as belonging to any species with which we were already 

 acquainted. The first day of the year having proved uncommonly mild, I 

 went out, accompanied by my father, with the expectation of obtaining 

 something new for our collection of birds. We had scarcely left our own 

 door when we observed a small flock alight in a thicket of evergreens a short 

 distance from where we stood. Thinking they were Pine Grosbeaks, we 

 directed the man who was with us to push on and obtain a shot. He did so, 

 and we just arrived in time to pick up a pair of birds which he had killed. 

 One glance was sufficient to shew us that they were not what we had sup- 

 posed, but a species we had never previously seen or heard of as visiting 

 that portion of the Continent. You, my dear sir, have often enjoyed such 

 moments, and therefore can easily conceive the intense delight with which 

 we surveyed our prize, and how anxiously we watched the progress of the 

 remainder, as they flew to an adjoining thicket, where one immediately 

 disappeared, while the other took its station on the top of a spruce, from 



