
Q 16 Provincial Museum Report. 1917 

The collection for the season numbered approximately as follows: 290 mammals, 528 birds, 
1,118 insects, 10 reptiles and batrachians, 300 plants, 35 fishes, 40 sets of birds’ eggs. 
The writer wishes to take this opportunity of expressing his thanks to Mr. George Heggie, 
of Vernon, for permission to shoot over the property of the Land and Agricultural Company ; 
to Mr. B. Thorlacson; Mr. William Johnstone and Mr. H. R. Hanna, of the Commonage, for a 
similar privilege; and to Mr. George N. Gartrell, Deputy Game Warden, of Summerland, for 
his valuable assistance in securing certain specimens. 
Some of the ornithological notes made during the past two years are as follows :-— 
HOLBELL’S GREBE (Colymbus holbelli). 
Found breeding Commonly at Swan Lake on May 18th and June Sth, 1916. Twenty nests 
were found and three sets of fresh eggs were taken. The nests were composed of dead rotting 
vegetation, held in place by growing rushes, and floating, half-submerged, in water from 2 to 
4 feet in depth. In some cases the eggs were partly or wholly covered when found, but usually 
were exposed. When a nest was visited both birds of the pair swam up and down in the open 
water 20 or 30 yards beyond the nest, showing no signs of alarm. <A peculiar fact noted was 
that near every nest, generally within a few yards, there was invariably a coot’s nest. 
RED-THROATED Loon (Gavia stellata). 
A juvenal female picked up dead on the shore of Okanagan Lake on November 22nd, 1915, 
is the first record of this species in the Okanagan. The body was in a very emaciated condition 
and the stomach and digestive tract empty and contracted. 
Barep Greve (Colymbus nigricollis californicus). 
This species was first recorded from the Okanagan by Major Allan Brooks on April 17th, 
1914. Another individual was seen by the writer two weeks later and was again noted on 
May 27th, 1915. 
Buiack Tern (Hydiochelidon nigra surinamensis ). 
Usually a scarce, irregular migrant. On May 18th, 1916, a breeding colony of twenty pairs 
(estimated) was observed at Swan Lake. On June Sth three sets of fresh eggs were taken. 
The nests consisted of a few pieces of water-soaked rushes or other aquatic plants, resting on 
the floating mass of dead tules that had drifted against the outer fringe of marsh. This bed 
of flotsam, anchored securely to the growing tules and rising and falling on the waves, without 
wetting its upper surface. formed an ideal nesting-place. While hunting for the nests, breast- 
deep in mud and water, the terns kept flying about in restless excitement, often within arm’s 
length. : 
BLUE-WINGED TEAL (Querquedula discors). 
Once fairly common throughout the Interior of British Columbia, this species has been of 
rare occurrence in the Okanagan during the past ten years. Five individuals were seen during 
May, 1915, and three of them secured. 
CINNAMON TEAL (Querquedula cyanoptera). 
Rare summer resident. Five were seen at Swan Lake on May 18th, 1916. 
REDHEAD (Marila americana). 
Found breeding at Swan Lake. On June Sth a nest with four fresh eggs was taken on the 
side of a musk-rat house. The hollow containing the eggs was well lined with dry tules, but 
as the female had not laid her complement of eggs, no down had been added. This is the 
commonest duck on Okanagan Lake during the winter; large flocks gather in the shallow water 
at the north end of the lake, reaching the maximum number about February 15th. 
Barrow’'s GOLDEN-EYE (Clangula islandica). 
A common summer resident. <A series of skins collected includes an adult male and half- 
grown and immature birds of both sexes. Usually for a nesting-site this species selects an old 
woodpecker’s hole that has Lecome enlarged by decay, and generally in a tree close to the shore 
