84 Bird-Nesting 



to their tent, which was five miles away. That same after- 

 noon they packed up and drove towards Saskatoon, and on ar- 

 riving there, two days later, they heard that a number of whites 

 had been killed near Battleford, and felt tliankful that they 

 had so narrowly escaped a similar fate. Soon afterwards the 

 rebellion broke out amongst the North-West Indians, and after 

 severe fighting for several weeks, the Indians were defeated, 

 and their leaders, Big Bear, Riel, and others, taken prisoners, 

 not before Canada had lost many of her brave young volunteers. 

 On inquiring what became of the eggs of the whooping 

 crane, Mac. told me that in their excitement the}^ were for- 

 gotten, so were probably hatched. He described the nest as 

 consisting of a flat mass of rushes and grass, about three feet 

 in diameter. The whooping crane breeds throughout Mani- 

 toba, Assiniboia, and the Saskatchewan, northward. On June 

 l7th, at Oak Lake, I bought a clutch of two eggs that were 

 collected by a boy on the prairie, north of Oak Lake : these 

 are yellowish dral), lilotched with pale brown and greyish 

 purple, and measure 3.90x2.53 and 3.95x2.55. Another clutch 

 of two eggs in my collection were taken near the inouth 

 of the Red River of the North, near the shore of Lake Win- 

 nipeg : here are extensive swamps and small lakes. The 

 oTeat marshes about the mouth of the Red River extend for 

 miles, and are probably the largest duck grounds in the North- 

 West. Here, in the fall of the year, ducks and geese congre- 

 gate in myriads, while in summer these swamps offer suitable 

 nesting-places for whooping cranes, little brown cranes, bitterns, 

 western grebes, rednecked, horned, and eared grebes, also three 

 or four species of gulls, and a number of varieties of ducks and 

 rails, and other birds. The eggs of the whooping crane are 

 large and attractive ; the ground colour is light brownish drab, 

 some having a yellowish or olive bufl" tinge : tliey are blotched, 

 spotted, and splashed chiefly around the largest end with pale 

 chocolate brown and purple grey shell markings ; some eggs 

 have little elevations on them like warts. In a series of twenty 

 eggs before me, the largest measures 4.30x2. 2(S and 4.25x2.37. 

 These eggs are very elongated, and pointed at the smaller end; 



