Our Time Was Much Too
Limited To Allow Us To Treasure Up All The Anecdotes And Theories
Anent Birds, Their Mysterious Spring And Autumn Migrations, Their
Lively Memory Of Places, So Agreeably Dealt Out To Us.
We cannot,
however, entirely omit noticing some curious objects we saw - the tiny
nest of a West Indian humming
Bird male out of a piece of sponge, and
he cubiculum of a redheaded woodpecker, with its eggs still in
it, scooped out of the decayed heart of a silver birch tree, with the
bird's head still peering from the orifice in the bark. Here, as well
as in the library, the presentations were numerous: Col. Rhodes was
represented by a glossy Saguenay raven. I listened, expecting each
moment to hear it, like Poe's nocturnal visitor, "ghostly, grim and
ancient," croak out "nevermore!"
The late Hon. Adam Fergusson Blair, once a familiar of Spencer Grange,
was remembered by some fine Scotch grouse, ptarmigan and a pair of
capercailzie, in splendid feather, brought from Scotland. A good
specimen of the silvery gull, shot at Niagara Falls, was a gift from
John William McCallum, Esq., now of Melbourne, E.T. - an early friend
of our friend, whilst a very rare foreign bird (a Florida or glossy
ibis), shot at Grondines, had been contributed by Paul J. Charlton,
Esq., a Quebec sportsman. What had brought it so far from home?
At the bead of the grave, omniscient owls, like the foreman of a grand
jury, stood a majestic "grand duc," the largest owl of the Pyrenees,
resembling much our Virginian species, - a donation from a French
savant, Le Frere Ogerien.
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