Exhibit m Chicago Natural History Museum 



Canadian Water Birds 



The scene is in Saskatchewan; the locahty, Quill Lake. After travelling over the 

 prairie grasslands, where the species of birds are scant and individuals are few — a few 

 horned larks and longspurs, with savanna sparrows, vesper sparrows, and meadow- 

 larks here and there — the abundance of nesting water birds about a prairie slough and 

 the clamor of their voices are almost incredible. The continual scolding of willets, the 

 cries of gulls and terns, and the whistling wings of ducks that keep flying about over- 

 head are bewildering. 



About a prairie slough thousands of ducks are sometimes in sight at one time: mal- 

 lards, pintails, green-winged teals, blue-winged teals, baldpates, gadwalls, redheads, 

 canvasbacks and lesser scaups in great numbers. If there is a reed bed in the slough, 

 red-winged blackbirds and yellow-headed blackbirds, long-billed marsh wrens and 

 Maryland yellow-throats may nest there, and perhaps a colony of Franklin's gulls. 

 As many as 2,000 nests of eared grebes have been estimated on one slough; ring-billed 

 and California gulls are numerous; black terns hovering over the edge of the water 

 are characteristic; and here and there are common terns. An intruder walking along 

 the water's margin is continually scolded by the noisy willets and marbled godwits 

 flying about and by killdeer and spotted sandpipers running along ahead. 



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