254 
SINGING BIRDS. 
The bird has been taken throughout the greater part of this 
Eastern Province ; but its distribution appears, from the evidence 
so far gathered, to be somewhat peculiar. It winters in Mexico 
and southward, and in the spring migrates wholly along the Missis- 
sippi valley, where it is more or less abundant north to Manitoba, 
though it is rarely seen at that season to the eastward of Illinois. 
It breeds in Minnesota, Dakota, and Manitoba, and in the au- 
tumn part of the flocks go south along the Mississippi, while others 
pass eastward along the shores of the Great Lakes, and thence to 
Massachusetts, the most northern limit of the bird’s range on 
the Atlantic side, where it is common during the first half of 
September, after which the flocks continue on a gradual movement 
southward. 
Dr. Wheaton considered the species very rare in Ohio, and it 
was thought to be rare in Ontario until 1884, when my friend Wil- 
liam Saunders found it common in the vicinity of London. The 
only nest yet taken w-as discovered by another friend and fellow- 
worker Ernest Thompson. It was found near Carberry, Manitoba, 
in 1883, sunk amid a mossy mound in a tamarack swamp, — “a 
dark, gray waste.” 
In the West, during the spring migrations, these birds are exceed- 
ingly active and very shy, moving incessantly among the branches 
in quest of insects, and when approached darting into the thickest 
covers; but those I saw on the Fresh Pond marsh at Cambridge 
fed chiefly on the ground, among the leaves, and when disturbed 
flew generally but a short distance to a low branch, and sat as com- 
posedly as a Thrush. 
Thompson describes the song as similar to the Golden-crowned 
Thrush, and says it may be suggested by the syllables beecher- 
beecher-beecher-beecher-beecher-beccher, sung at the same pitch 
throughout. 
