14 The Ottawa Naturalist. [April 



SUGGESTIONS FOR ORNITHOLOGICAL WORK 



IN CANADA* 



By p. a. Taverner, 

 Geological Survey, Ottawa. 



In surveying the results of ornithological work done in the 

 Dominion to date, one is struck with the number of blank spaces 

 in our knowledge, and the fine field yet offered for original 

 research. 



In the subject of life-histories, there is hardly a species, 

 amongst our typical Canadian forms, that has been compre- 

 hensively worked up. Most of the work accomplished along 

 these lines has been done in the adjoining republic and describes 

 conditions abroad, slightly foreign to us zoologically as well 

 as politically. Of course, our workers have been fewer both 

 actually and proportionally in Canada than in the United States, 

 and perhaps under the circumstances the broader generalizations 

 that our few have accomplished has been of more pressing nature 

 than the detailed surveys accomplished in the older community. 



In geographical distribution our knowledge of Canadian 

 avifauna is fragmentary and, if it were not for the results of 

 work accomplished in the United States, would still be but an 

 outline. The Maritime Provinces have been touched but 

 locally. The Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence has been 

 worked intermittently. From Montreal west to the Toronto 

 region but high spots have been touched; in fact, the southern 

 peninsula of Ontario is perhaps the onh^ area of any size in 

 Canada, that has had anything like adequate attention from an 

 ornithological standpoint. From a line east of Georgian bay 

 to the Manitoba boundary we know practically nothing of bird 

 conditions. Continuous systematic work in Manitoba ceased some 

 years ago and the other Prairie Provinces — Saskatchewan and 

 Alberta — have received but desultory attention from visiting 

 naturalists. British Columbia is being investigated in spots but 

 most of its area except locally in the southern portions is a terra 

 incognita as far as exact ornithological knowledge is concerned. 



In the northern regions, on the Yukon river and some of its 

 tributaries and main highways, considerable work has been done 

 by occasional visitors. Along the route from Lake Athabasca 



Published by permission of the Deputy Minister of Mines. 



