186 Bird-Nesting 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



■^-I^UNE 20th. — For breakfast this morning, bread, 

 butter and milk were put before me, but the 

 bread was so dark-looking and sour I could not 

 eat it, so I drank a couple of glasses of milk, and 

 ^z- then called the proprietor of this so-called " hotel ", and 

 1^^ asked him what he meant by placing such a meal 

 before me. I really had to use some unparliamentary language, 

 for he had simply starved me for two days. His excuse was 

 that they had run out of provisions, and that the nearest store 

 was at Winnipeg, thirty-live miles away. He said he was 

 going by the next train to Winnipeg to buy provisions. I 

 told him I was also going by the next train to Winnipeg for 

 my breakfast, so I left the cabin in disgust, and went down to 

 the lake to collect some more black terns' eggs, and to have a 

 iinal look at this paradise for birds. I obtained a number of 

 sets of black tern, and a set of six short-billed marsh wren, 

 and also startled a little bittern from a clump of rushes, and 

 then found its nest and live eggs. The nest was built in the 

 middle of a tussock of rushes : it was a saucer-shaped structure 

 of sedges, and the eggs are plain bluish white, averaging 

 1.20x.94. In wading about, I came across several nests and 

 eggs of coots and yellow-headed blackbirds, but did not molest 

 them. I also flushed a Carolina crake oft* its nest and nine eggs, 

 and soon afterwards found a nest and seven eggs of the king- 

 rail. The nest of the latter was made of sedges, and built in a 

 cluster of rushes. The eggs are pale buff", and sparsely spotted 

 with reddish-brown and lilac, averaging in size 1.65x1.10. A 

 pair of Swainson's buzzards were flying about the lake ; they 

 swooped down several times among the rushes, probably after 

 the young ducks. This is the most common of the buzzards 

 found in the North-West, and build their nests in the trees in 

 the blufts. The eggs can easily be distinguished from those of 



