CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 28I 



Breeding Notes. — We have few authentic records of the nesting 

 of this bird. 



It breeds every year in the Magdalen islands in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, selecting a thick bushy place. (Rev. C. J. Young.) 

 A pair built regularly on an island in Lake Joseph, Muskoka, Ont. 

 (/. H. Fleming.) This falcon ranges along the Anderson river 

 almost to the Arctic coast at Liverpool bay. Several of their nests 

 had apparently been built by them on pine trees, and others on the 

 ledges of shaly cliffs. The former were composed externally of a 

 few dry willow twigs, and internally of withered hay or grass, &c., 

 and the latter had only a very few decayed leaves under the eggs. 

 I would also mention the following interesting circumstance. On 

 May 25th, 1864, a trusty Indian in my employ found a nest placed 

 in the midst of a thick branch of a pine tree at a height of about six 

 feet from the ground. It was rather loosely constructed of a few 

 dry sticks and a small quantity of hay. It then contained two eggs. 

 Both parents were seen, fired at and missed. On the 3 ist he revisited 

 the nest which still had two eggs, and again missed the birds. Several 

 days later he made another visit thereto, and to his surprise the eggs 

 and parents had disappeared. His first impression was that some 

 other person had taken them. After looking carefully around he 

 perceived both birds at a short distance and this led him to institute 

 a search, which soon resulted in finding that the eggs must have been 

 removed by the parent birds to the face of a muddy bank at least 

 forty yards distant from the original nest. A few decayed leaves 

 had been placed under them, but nothing else in the way of lining, 

 A third &gg had been added in the interim. There can hardly be 

 any doubt of the truth of the foregoing facts. {Macfarlane.) 



I have sets of eggs taken in Muskoka and southern Labrador, also 

 others from northern Manitoba and northern Saskatchewan. One 

 of the sets was taken at Lake St. Joseph, Muskoka, Ontario, by 

 J. D. McMurrick. The nest was built in a tall pine and contained 

 four handsome eggs. {W. Raine.) A regular breeding species 

 throughout Manitoba and noted at several points between Portage 

 la Prairie and Edmonton, Alta., in 1906. {Atkinson.) 



