In North- West Canada. 17 



miles of river navigation to the north, south and west, and 

 with railways radiating in every direction. From here the 

 wants of the people of the west are supplied, and this way 

 come the products of their fields, while from the far north 

 are brought furs in great variety and number. 



Winnipeg is a very good centre for a sportsman to start 

 from, for by driving out a few miles on the prairie along the 

 banks of the Red River any quantity of prairie chicken and 

 grouse and ducks may be had. Every hotel in Winnipeg possess- 

 es a few fine heads of bufialo, musk ox, moose or cariboo, and 

 other deer. In no other city have I ever seen such a display of 

 the heads and antlers of these noble animals. A few miles out 

 of Winnipeg is a herd of bufialo in a park, half domesticated ; 

 these are the only ones known to be alive in the North- West. 

 I called upon the well-known Taxidermist of Winnipeg, and 

 found him busy preparing a lot of handsome heads of deer, 

 moose, bear and bufialo. He takes over a shipment every fall 

 to London, England, when he realizes as much as £50 each for 

 heads of moose, musk ox and buffalo. He has the finest col- 

 lection of heads and antlers I ever saw. I have a large case 

 of owls he shot in the neighborhood of Winnipeg, comprising 

 the great grey owl, snowy and hawk owls ; these species are 

 not at all rare in the district, and he knows of several in- 

 stances of these birds breeding a few miles north of Winni- 

 peg, towards the mouth of the Red River. 



He wanted me to go down the Winnipeg river with him to 

 try and shoot a pair of bald and golden eagles. He had found 

 their eyries a month previously. As I knew it would be too late 

 for eggs and it would take four days to complete this expedi- 

 tion down the Winnipeg river, and as I was anxious to reach the 

 western prairies I had to decline his offer to take me to the 

 nests of these birds. He found the eyries of the bald and 

 golden eagles early in May, while on a shooting trip ; they 

 were built on the face of a cliff* on a ledge, and the spot could 

 be easily seen from his canoe, on account of the rocks being 

 white-washed by the droppings of the birds below the eyries. 

 The nests were about a mile apart and both in similar situa- 

 B 



