78 
Capt. Blakiston on the Birds of the 
visitorbut when I reached the bottom of the bill leading down 
from the plain into the river valley in which the fort is situated, I 
observed a dull-coloured birdfly across the track, and alight among 
some maple-trees; I was soon up with him, and bringing him 
down, I found to my delight that it was a Tree Sparrow ( S . monti- 
cola ) (‘ Ibis/ vol. iv. p. 6). In my joy at having killed the first 
spring bird, I yelled a sort of Indian war-whoop, and went off 
whistling to the fort. Its crop contained the interior grains of the 
Snow-berry (Symphoricarpus racemosus), which M. Bourgeau, the 
botanist, determined for me, and said that he had met with the 
plant “ part out ” west of Lake Winipeg, and that it was common as 
a bush about two feet high in the river valley at Fort Carlton. 
A fresh south-west wind blew on the 19th, and on the 20th I 
found another Tree Sparrow, and the next day a party of seven 
or eight. After this the spring wore slowly on, and it was some 
time before we received any more additions in the ornithological 
way; so that the Tree Sparrow may be considered by far the 
earliest of the Insessores. The ‘ Fauna Bor.-Am/ remarks that 
it leaves the Saskatchawan in the third week in April, and goes 
farther north to breed. Mr. Murray has received specimens 
from Hudson's Bay; and Mr. Boss records it on the Mackenzie; 
while I found it from York Factory, on the western coast of the 
Bay, in August, to Lake Winipeg and up the Saskatchawan till 
the 14th of October. It was then nearly always in company 
with Junco liyemalis; but that bird did not arrive until some time 
after it in the spring. The Tree Sparrow may always be distin¬ 
guished from among the other sparrow-like Buntings, when in a 
wild state, by the chestnut of the head and the dark spot on the 
breast. In 18581 met with it as late as the 28th of October, on 
the north branch of the Saskatchawan, and found that its range 
extended to the eastern base of the Bocky Mountains. 
Spizella socialis. 
Notwithstanding that the Chipping Sparrow ranges across 
the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it has not been 
found, until lately, in the interior of British North America, 
except at Pembina, wdiere the boundary-line (the 49th parallel) 
crosses the Bed Biver of the North, from which locality there is 
a specimen in the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Boss, however. 
