28 Bird-Nesting 



This past five years I have received a number of sets from 

 Lapland. Two clutches of five eggs and one of four in my 

 collection, were collected in Lapland, June 20th, 1888. The 

 nests consisted of twigs, roots and grasses, built in low trees. 

 The eggs are like those of the cedar bird in colour and mark- 

 ings, but are considerably larger, averaging 95x65. A clutch 

 of four eggs that were collected for me in Finnland, June 

 20th, 1885, are now in the collection of Chas. E. Doe, of Pro- 

 vidence. The eggs measure lx:70, .99x70, .95x69, .93x.68. 



One of the commonest birds in Moosejaw valley is the arctic 

 towhee, I could hear several calling at once, every time 1 

 visited this valley, their nests are hard to find, however. In 

 passing some shrubbery I flushed one from amongst the roots, 

 and there found a nest Imilt flush with the ground. It was 

 made of dried grass, similar to the eastern towhee bunting ; 

 it contained four eggs of a greenish white ground colour, freck- 

 led with reddish brown. Moosejaw creek is well wooded with 

 small elms, oaks and other trees, and has a thick undergrowth 

 of brushwood along its banks. Nearly every tree of size contains 

 a hawk's nest or that of an owl. I was surprised to find so many 

 hawks' nests in such a small area, but it is easily accounted for, 

 because the conveniences for nesting in this district are limited 

 to these narrow valleys. There were always several hawks to 

 be seen hovering over the valley, and Swainson's buzzard 

 was the most plentiful. One flopped ofl" a nest on my ap- 

 proach, and I was soon up the tree peeping over the edge of 

 the nest, and was delighted to find it contained two eggs: they 

 were white, blotched with reddish brown, and are smaller than 

 the eggs of the red-tail hawk. I was on the wrong side of the 

 stream for the hawks' nests, so I climbed up the steep banks of 

 the valley and reached the high prairie south of Moosejaw. 

 Here field plovers and killdeers were plentiful, but I did not 

 find their nests. The prairies around Moosejaw are very 

 hilly, and this is what they call the rolling prairie. With the 

 exception of the small trees growing at the bottom of Moose- 

 jaw creek, the country is treeless from Regina west to the 

 Cypress hills, a distance of 200 miles. The hillj^ prairie is 



