490 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



ground, lined with a little dried grass; nest on the open prairie in 

 short grass; rare at the Cypress hills, only one specimen seen in a 

 week. (Spreadborough.) Quite common at Brandon, Man., and 

 Moose Jaw, Sask., in 1896. This is a common bird everywhere on 

 the prairie from Indian Head, Sask., westward to Frenchman river; 

 this species, the horned lark and McCowan's bunting make up nearly 

 the whole avi-fauna of the absolute prairie. It is exclusively a 

 prairie bird and is more or less common in all country traversed 

 in 1895 to Milk river. No nests were taken before June i8th, though 

 in the preceding year young were hatched before that date. (Ma- 

 coun.) I have found this bird breeding abundantly throughout the 

 prairie parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It was especially 

 numerous on the prairie north of Moose Jaw, Sask., where during 

 the first week of June, 1891, I found many nests on the ground at 

 the side of sods and containing five or six eggs each. {W. Raine.) 



Breeding Notes. — My first specimens were secured July 14th, 

 1 873, at which dates the early broods were already on wing. Uniting 

 of several families had scarcely begun, however, nor were small 

 flocks made up, apparently, till the first broods had, as a general 

 thing, been left to themselves, the parents busying themselves with 

 a second set of eggs. Then straggling troops, consisting chiefly of 

 birds of the' year, were almost continually seen, mixing freely with 

 Baird's buntings and the skylarks; in fact, most of the congregations 

 of prairie birds that were successively disturbed by our advancing 

 wagon-trains consisted of all three of these, with a considerable 

 sprinkling of Savanna sparrows, shore- larks and bay- winged buntings. 

 The first eggs I secured were July i8th, nearly a week after I had 

 found young on wing ; these were fresh ; other nests examined at the 

 same time contained newly hatched young. Again, I have found 

 fresh eggs so late as the first week in August. During the second 

 season, the first eggs were taken July 6th, and at that time there 

 were already plenty of young birds flying. The laying-season must 

 consequently reach over a period of at least two months. I was 

 not on the ground early enough to determine the commencement 

 exactly, but supposing a two weeks' incubation, and about the same 

 length of time occupied in rearing the young in the nest, the first 

 batch of eggs must be laid early in June to give the sets of young 

 which fly by the first of July. There is obviously time for the first 

 pair to get a second, if not a third, brood off their hands by the 



