THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST. 



215 



earlier part of tbe year. Newman gives Sep- 

 tember as its regular time of appearance. Yet 

 many females of this sjoeoies, at their regular 

 time of appearance, are found destitute of ova, 

 and the inevitable consequence is its rarity, 

 and possibly its dying out, at least in Eng- 

 land, unless (as intimated by Dr. Wallace) it 

 is kept up by freshflpcimens flying over from 

 ai)road. There is another cause of the rarity 

 of some species, but its mode of operation is 

 difficult to discover. Sometimes the introduc- 

 tion of an insect from another country, if it 

 become abundant in its new habitat, will aflect 

 injuriously a native species, generally one 

 allied to the species introduced. It is the 

 general opinion of entomologists in the Prov- 

 ince of Quebec, that since the acclimatization 

 of Pieris rupm, the native Pieris oleracea has 

 become scarce. The newcomer seems in some 

 mysterious way to liave usurped the place ol 

 the other species, and driven it away from 

 places where formerly it was abundant. How 

 this has been accomplished, however, we 

 cannot tell. 



G. J. BowLps. 



THE HUDSONIAN CHI(3SA;CEEr-- - 

 iParus Sttdsoniais.) 

 The true home of the Hudson Bay Tit, as 

 Ihis species is generally called, is in the more 

 northern parts of the continent, in Labrador 

 and tlie Hudson Bay region, with a range in 

 those latitudes frojii the Atlantic to the Pacific ; 

 though at the east it is met with much farther 

 south than in the middle or western sections. 

 It is a^ resident of Nova Scotia and New 



Brunswick, breeding in both Provinces, wliere, ^ 



though not abundant, it is far too common to J chant 



be called rare, though it is more frequently { called a song— for whether the singer be he of 

 rnet m winter than at other seasons. Accord- 1 the black tuft whose voice is heard on the 

 mg to Mr. Everett Smith it is a common resi- : banks of the Rio Grande ; or Carolinensis, who 

 dent of the inlerior eastern and northern por- : helps to swell the chorus which comes up 

 tion of Maine. Mr. Harry Merrill writes me [ Irom " the Land o' Dixie or our own brown- 

 that he has not known it to occur near Ban- ^ capped hero, whose tiny throstle flings a wel- 

 ,.,-,,,,,,'c, ,.„.,.„ (Q t_j-^g g^jj jjgjjjj breaks upon the 



species. Professor Macoun has not placed it 

 in his partial list of Belleville birds, nor did 

 he find the bird in the Grand Valley of the 

 Assiniboine. It is not given in the catalogue 

 of the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club, though 

 in the copy before me the name has been 

 penned in by one of the members in place of 

 riifescens, the latter being an obvious error as 

 that species was discovered by Townsend on 

 the Columbia River, and it has never been 

 taken nortii or ea.st of that region. But this is 

 an error easily made unless the habitat of the 

 two species is considered, their plumage being 

 similar. 



Of the eighteen species of the Parole found 

 in North America the most widely distributed 

 and the best known is the Black-capped (P. 

 atrieaiHllus), the type species of the family. 

 This bird is found in all suitable localities 

 along the southern borders of the Dominion 

 (as well as much further south) from the 

 Atlantic to Manitoba. In the latter Province 

 and across the Plains to the Rockies il is 

 replaced by septenlrionalis, which Mr. Eidgway 

 says " may be looked upon as simply a long- 

 tailed western variety of the common species." 

 Beyond the Rockies this is again replaced by 

 still another variety, named by Baird ocidenta- 

 lis. Of the Hudson Bay Tit no variation in 

 the western specimens has as yet been record- 

 ed. But it is in form and coloration, only that 

 the .species of the family e.xhibit any marked 

 diflerences, for no matter what name they 

 bear, nor where they make their homes, j'ou 

 will find them the same restless, merry, 

 sociable pygmies with all the familiar habits 

 of the Black-cap. Tlieir songs also bear a 

 strong general resemblance — if the jingling 

 11 which they carol their joy can be 



gor, nor is it given i,i Mr. Nathan C. Brown „ 

 catalogue of Portland species, but there are 

 records of a few being taken in New Hamp- 

 shire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Mr. 

 LeMoine in Les Oiseaux du Canada mentions it 

 as a rare species (jylus rare en Canada), and it 

 certainly is along the entire southern section 

 of the western - Provinces, for Mr. Wintle does 

 not appear to have found it near Montreal, nor 

 is the name in the Saunders-Morden list, nor 

 in Mr. Mollwraith's old list of Hamilton 



hills of the far north, or be he whatever mem- 

 ber of this family he may, the theme of his 

 song is much the same jaunty ttlha-dee-dee-dee 

 as rings through our Canadian woods the 

 whole year long. The song of the Black- 

 capped and the Hudsonian are especially 

 similar, and their general appearance and 

 their manners in the field, i^artioularly the 

 latter,^ are so alike as to make their exact 

 identification rather difficult ; yet even in 



