306 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 
and active. I was much surprised to see the Banded Purple 
again ( Limenitis Arthemis J, on the 4th of this month, after 
it had so long disappeared : but I conclude it was only an 
occasional straggler^ or one of an unusually late hatching. 
F. — The Ruby-throat humming-bird^, not deterred or 
driven away by our frosts^ is still courting the remaining 
flowers. He will soon^ however^ take his departure for a 
sunnier region. 
C. — I have observed that the Black Cherr}/ leaves are 
turning yellow. 
F, — The Brown Ash is the first tree that feels the effect 
of the season : it cannot withstand the breath of winter. 
The very first hard frost that comes denudes the ash^ not 
only causing its leaves to fade and become yellow^ as those of 
other treeS;, but blackening and shrivelling them up, so that 
they fall in showers, with the least breath of wind. Most 
of the ashes are already as bare as in winter. 
C. — The ash is about the last that leafs in spring : can 
any parallel be drawn between the times of the expanding 
and the fading of the leaves of forest trees ? 
F. — No ; they show no regularity in this respects The 
ash, butternut, bass wood, and beech, leaf about the same 
time, very late in the season : the ash and the bass wood 
fade early ; the former first of all ; but the butternut main- 
tains its foliage late, and the beech continues brightly green, 
long after many other trees are faded. The maple is late in 
expanding, but it fades gradually, and loses its leaves nei- 
ther very late nor very early, — about the same time as the 
birch, which also leafs with it : but the elm, which leafs 
likewise at the same time, is denuded long before either. 
The poplar and willow leaf early and fade late : the black 
cherry leafs and fades early ; and the tamarack buds very 
early, and remains braving the autumnal storms the latest 
