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92 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 
off. The Masuippi has been open for some weeks ; and in 
going to Sherbrooke last week, I observed large fragments of 
ice swiftly floating down that ro.pid river^ the St. Francis. 
C. — Notwithstanding the day has been so warm, now 
that the sun is down^ the air is chilly and even cold, — 
Listen to the singular sound proceeding from yonder cedar 
swamp. It is like the measured tinkle of a cow-bell^ or 
regular strokes upon a piece of iron quickly repeated. Now 
it has ceased. 
F, — There it is again. I will give you all the inform- 
ation I can about it ; and that is very little. In spring, 
that is, during the months of April, May, and the former 
part of June, we frequently hear, after nightfall, the sound 
you have just heard ; from its regularity it is usually thought 
to resemble the whetting of a saw, and hence the bird from 
which it proceeds is called the Saw-whetter. I say ^''the 
bird,'* because, though I could never find any one who had 
seen it, I have little doubt that it is a bird. I have asked 
Mr. Titian Peale, the venerable Professor Nuttall, and other 
ornithologists of Philadelphia, about it, but can obtain no 
information on the subject of the author of the sound : it 
seems to be — 
" Vox et prseterea nihil." 
Carver, in his amusing travels, mentions it as being heard 
near Lake Superior, naming it, if I recollect rightly, the 
Whetsaw. It may possibly be known, but I find nothing 
of it in Wilson or Bonaparte. Professor Nuttall was ac- 
quainted with the note, but told me plainly the bird was 
unknown. I conjecture it may be some of the herons or 
bitterns ; or, possibly, from a passage in Bonaparte's Orni- 
