IO Chamberlain’s New Brunswick Notes. [January 
near St. John, any good collecting ground for this class of sea- 
birds ; for many species reported as common at the mouth of the 
Bay of Fundy have not been taken here. L. arra bruennichi is 
an example of these. 
From several letters received I am led to suspect that the cor- 
rectness of the statement, made in my catalogue, that the Hud- 
sonian Chickadee breeds in New Brunswick, has been questioned. 
There need not be the slightest doubt on this point, as I have 
seen four nests here ; one in 1878, built in a stump ; another in 
1880, built in a telegraph post close by the railway station at 
Sutton; and two during last season. Of the latter, one was 
found near Edmunston by Mr. H. A. Purdie, and the second 
was found by Mr. J. W. Banks in the suburbs of St. John. 
These two were so similar, in position as well as construction, 
that a description of one will serve equally well for both. They 
were built in decayed stumps (apparently of firs or spruces) some 
three feet high and five inches in diameter. The entrance was 
from the top of the stump, and for the first six or eight inches 
was about two inches wide ; then it widened gradually to three 
inches, which latter width was carried down another six inches 
to the bottom of the excavation. On the bottom a platform of 
hard-packed, dry moss had been placed, and upon this a second 
platform of felt, or felted hair, of a bluish-ash color (probably 
the inner fur of the common hare) , and on this base rested the 
cup-shaped nest, which was also composed of this same felted 
fur. The walls of the nest were constructed with great neatness j 
and precision, and were about two and one-half inches high and l 
half an inch thick. In the nest found by Mr. Purdie the walls 
and lining were composed exclusively of fur, but in that found 
by Mr. Banks there was a considerable quantity of cow’s hair j! 
interwoven, or rather felted, with the fur. I saw the nest at Ed- |! 
munston on June 14, and the young in it were then but sparsely ; 
clothed with / down and showing little signs of feathering ; and 
when I examined the nest near St. John, on July 1, the five 
young which it contained were in much the same stage of develop- 
ment as those in the former nest had been. 
In March last I witnessed a scene which convinced me that the 
saying 4 k misery loves company” is as truly applicable to birds as j 
to men. It was a keen, frosty morning in the third week of the f 
month, a day as typical of midwinter as any that January brings 1 
us, for the snow still lay deep and firm upon the ground and j 
