22 Bird-Nesting 



see anything to interest anybody, there's nothing but a flat 

 expanse of monotonous prairie, and I am sick of it ah^eady ; I 

 don't know how I shall stand two or three days of it." We 

 try to interest him in the birds to be seen from the ear win- 

 dow, but his admiration does not lie in this direction, so two 

 of us leave him and go out and stand on the back platform of 

 a car, and enjoy a rich cigar and the surroundings. Every 

 prairie stream, or slough, has its brood of young ducks, just 

 hatched and swimming about, while their mothers fly ofl' on 

 the approach of the train. There were shovellers, ring-necked 

 ducks, American widgeons, redheads, pochards and blue-winged 

 teal, all easily recognized. Marsh harriers were plentiful, and 

 one appeared in sight every few miles. An occasional short- 

 eared owl would be flushed from the rushes of some slough- 

 It was soon evident that the prairies swarmed with bird-life, 

 and how eager we were to explore some of these sloughs. As 

 we proceed westward, we imperceptibly reach higher ground, 

 and the country is checkered with fields of green wheat, just 

 a few inches high. Fifty-five miles from Winnipeg, we reach 

 Portage-la-Prairie, noted for its big grain elevators and flour 

 mills. From this place Lake Manitoba is reached. In the 

 fall, ducks, geese and water birds congregate here in myriads. 

 Lake Manitoba is about ten miles north of the railway track, 

 and is bordered by a belt of forest inhabited with numerous 

 bears, moose, elk and black-tailed deer. From Portage-la- 

 Prairie a new railway reaches two hundred miles away to 

 the north-west to Yorkton, which will take the naturalist or 

 sportsman to the foot of the Riding and Duck Mountains and 

 Beaver Hills. Here are found bears, moose, lynx and wolves 

 in numbers. Near Yorkton is Crescent Lake, which swarms 

 with bird-life, and from here last summer I received a fine 

 collection of eggs taken on the shores of Crescent Lake. The 

 little brown crane breeds at Crescent Lake. I have two fine 

 sets that were collected here last spring. The eggs of the 

 little brown crane are large and handsome, they are at once 

 distinguished from the whooping and sandhill crane by their 

 smaller size, but are similar in colour and markings; their colour 



