In North-WcM Canada. 33 



the willets and killdeers. A short distance awaj?" on the mar- 

 gin of the slough, I saw a willet and a pair of phalaropes, 

 and approaching cautiously I raised my gun, bang — and the 

 willet dropped. He was a handsome specimen and I put him 

 into the buggy and then followed up the phalaropes which had 

 settled further on. I startled a small bird from the dry ground 

 on the margin of the slough, and found a nest of five eggs. The 

 eggs were unknown to me ; they resembled eggs of the grass 

 finch but were smaller. I afterwards found out they were eggs 

 of that rare bird, Baird's sparrow (ammodramus Bairdii). I 

 left the eggs in the nest, and placing a piece of wood near by 

 as a mark ; I went away in hopes the bird would return so 

 that I could shoot her to enable me to identify the eggs. Al- 

 though I stayed away twenty minutes before returning, I did 

 not see any signs of the bird, so I took the nest and the eggs. 

 The nest is made of dried grass and was built on the ground 

 after the manner of the song and Savannah sparrows. The 

 eggs are greyish white, spotted and blotched with various 

 shades of brown, and measure 0.78x0.60. This set was taken on 

 8th June, and they were quite fresh. On the 14th of June I 

 found another nest of Baird's sparrow on the prairie south of 

 Rush Lake ; it contained three eggs, and incubation was far 

 advanced, — the nest was made of grasses and on the ground. 

 These eggs were greyish white, finely spotted with dark brown, 

 and they have a few hair lines of brown after the fashion of 

 McCown's longspur, but the eggs are larger than those of 

 McCown's longspur. A pair of yellowshanks evidently had 

 a nest close by, so I set to work and seai'ched diligently for 

 over half an hour without any success, so I marked down the 

 spot intending to return later. On the north side of the slouo-h 

 the ground rises on a gentle slope, and here the grass grew in 

 tussocks. I flushed a Wilson's phalarope and soon found its 

 nest and four eggs well concealed in a tuft of grass, the nest 

 consisting of bits of rushes. The male bird alone undertakes the 

 incubation and when disturbed from the nest, flutters aloncr 

 the ground as if winged or wounded, and as you stoop to pick 

 him up he flutters away further and then rising in the air, be- 

 c 



