/'// North -West Cannda. 87 



of a circular depression in the ground, lined with bits of 

 rushes. The eggs were four in number, olive greenish brown, 

 blotched and spotted with dark brown and purplish-grey, and 

 measure about 1.55x1.07. 



Wilson's snipe is not very numerous either in Manitol)a or 

 Assiniboia : I only found a thin sprinkling of these birds be- 

 tween Winnipeg and Rush Lake, they became scarcer on ap- 

 proaching the south, towards the United States Ijoundary, and 

 are more frequent towards the Saskatchewan region of the 

 north. The male Wilson's snipe has the same habit as the 

 European snipe of flying in circles high in the air, and drop- 

 ping down suddenly a few yards with outstretched wings, 

 which cause a drummins; noise. I could almost fancy I was 

 on some of the Yorkshire moors in England, or on Strens- 

 all common, near York, where I used to find numerous nests 

 and eggs of the snipe, and have often lain (^n the ground and 

 watched and listened to the snipes drumming high in the air. 

 The trumpeter swan nests on the prairies north of Moosejaw, 

 at Buflalo Lake : they are early Ijreeders ; a set of five eggs 

 in my collection were taken on April 7th, 1891 : another set 

 of two eggs were taken on the same day. The nests were de- 

 scribed as being large structures, three feet in diameter, and 

 composed of sods, grass and rushes, the centres were lined 

 with feathers and down. The eggs are yellowish white, and 

 averacje 4.25x2.60. As the horse bep'an to get restless, I drove 

 round to the north of the slough. Here I found many species 

 of (hicks, and numerous Wilson's phalaropes, kildeers and Bar- 

 tram's sandpipers. The nests of these three species were 

 found some distance from the water's edge, upon the dry 

 prairie. The kildeer is a noisy, wary bird, and is never 

 flushed ofl* the nest, like the fleld plovei- and Wilson's phal- 

 arope. As soon as their nesting quarter is approaclied, some 

 male bird, who is on the look out, flies toward the inti'uder 

 and begins calling out " Tewitt," and the cry is very similar 

 to that of the European lapwing plover, being somewhat 

 plaintive and sad : all the kildeers in the immediate neigh- 

 liourhood then leave their nests and besrin to flv in the air. 



