In North-West Canada. 23 



is ashy yellow, drab-blotched and clouded, chiefly at the larger 

 ends, with different shades of brown and purple grey. One 

 set of two eggs collected at Crescent Lake on May 20th, 1890, 

 measures 3.60x2.30 and 3.64x2.32. The nest was found on a 

 sandy knoll in a marsh, and was a large structure of broken- 

 down reeds and aquatic plants ; the bird was flushed off the 

 nest. Another set of two eggs in my collection from Crescent 

 Lake only measure 3.56x2.28 and 3.59x2.30. They were col- 

 lected on May 16th, 1890. 



Between Portage-la-Prairie and Brandon we pass many 

 villages at distances of ten and twenty miles apart. After 

 passing through a bushy district of scrub oak, with frequent 

 ponds and small streams, alive with birds, the railway rises 

 from Austin along a sandy slope to a plateau near the centre 

 of which is situated Carberry, a fine district for the ornitholo- 

 gist. From Sewell the railway descends again to the valley of 

 the Assiniboine, and Brandon is reached. Next to Winnipeg, 

 Brandon is the largest town in the North-West, with a popu- 

 lation of 5000. The town is beautifully situated on high 

 ground and overlooks the valley of the Assiniboine river. In 

 the Ornithologist and Oologist for July, 1885, published by 

 F. B. Webster, are notes on the birds found around Brandon 

 by the late T. B. Wood. Mr. Wood was an enthusiastic nat- 

 uralist, and unfortunately fell a victim in the cause of his 

 favourite pursuit. One day, late in October, 1883, having 

 shot a rare duck in a slough, he waded into the water up to 

 his waist to get the bird, and thereby contracted a severe cold 

 which resulted in his death. Mr. Wood was an Englishman, 

 from Manchester, and only twenty-six years of age when he 

 died. His notes were sent to his friend, T. H. Nelson, in Eng- 

 land, who communicated them to the Zoologist. It was 

 through reading his notes that I was prompted to visit the 

 North-West ; his field notes on the birds of this district are 

 highly interesting. 



Leaving Brandon, we have fairly reached the first of the 

 great prairie steppes that rise one after the other at long in- 

 tervals to the Rocky mountains, and now we are on the real 



