In NorfJi-West Canada . 159 



CHAPTER XX. 



ii^W^NE KSth. — This morning I was up early and out 

 before breakfast, and strolled through the bush south 

 of Oak Lake. Here I found a number of common 

 (f^^^"^^ woodland birds nesting. I came across a nest of the 

 \0^ cedar bird and five eggs, built in a poplar ; the nest 

 /fU was made of twigs, leaves and grass, lined with fine 

 roots. The eggs are slate-coloured, spotted with dark purple- 

 brown. The cedar bird is a late breeder, seldom having eggs 

 before the end of June, fresh eggs often being found as late as 

 the second week in August. This bird has been obtained in 

 England. I saw several great northern shrikes, Canada jays, 

 meadow larks, bobolinks, clay-coloured sparrows, warblers, and 

 other small birds. I did not find a nest of Brewer's blackbirds 

 in the North-West, neither do I recollect seeing the bird, but 

 rusty grackles and bronzed grackles, red-winged and yellow- 

 headed blackbirds are plentiful everywhere in the blufi^s and 

 around the sloughs. They all go under the name of blackbirds, 

 and share in common the curses of the settlers, on account of 

 the damage they do in the harvest fiel<l. 



The Canada jay or whiskey jack is not a rare bird in Mani- 

 toba, but its nest and eggs are seldom obtained. They breed 

 in the bluffs and in tamarac and willow swamps, and the birds 

 often visit the farms, and are well known to the settlers. The 

 nest is usually built in spruce or tamarac trees, and made of 

 twigs, bark and grasses, and the four or five eggs are greyish- 

 yellow, finely marked with spots of brown or slate colour, and 

 they average in size 1.20x0.70. 



Another well-known bird whose eggs are seldom obtained is 

 the Canada grouse or spruce partridge. They breed on Turtle 

 Mountain and in the Riding and Duck Mountains, and in east- 

 ern Manitoba, along the Winnipeg river. Further east they 

 breed along the northern shore of Lake Superior, and on the 



