496 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
some fine rootlets, sometimes lined with hair, like the chippy’s, 
sometimes with very fine grass tops; it is placed ina crotch of 
the bush or in a tuft of weeds ; the copses of scrubby willows I 
found to be favorite nesting places, though any of the shrubbery 
along the river bank seemed to answer ; on those occasions when 
I approached a nest containing eggs, the female fluttered silently 
‘and furtively away, without venturing a protest; the eggs I found 
in one case to be deposited daily till the complement was filled ; 
they measure 0°62 in length by o’50 in breadth on an average ; 
the ground-colour is light dull green, sparsely but distinctly 
speckled with some rich and other darker shades of brown, these 
markings being chiefly confined to the larger end, or wreathed 
about it, though tHere are often a fewspecks here and there over 
the rest of the surface; from the earliness of the first sets of eggs, 
I suppose that two broods may be reared each season. (Covwes.) 
The spot chosen for their home is mostly in a low bush, not more 
than a foot from the ground; as exception to this rule I have 
noted five nests on the ground and one or two ata height of three 
feet; it is a very slight structure, a good deal like that of a chip- 
ping sparrow, but composed entirely of grass ; when compared 
with other tree nests it is conspicuously flimsy and light-coloured, 
the latter effect being due to the absence of the black fibrous 
roots so commonly used as lining; the eggs are among the most 
beautiful of any produced by the sparrows; when first the discoverer 
draws aside the bush and exposes the nest with its complement, 
his feelings are as of finding an exquisite casket of jewels ; although 
this is one of the most common of our sparrows, and aithough on 
the scrubby plain between the Duck Mountain and the Assiniboine 
in early June, I could have found as many as four or five nests in 
an hour’s walk, the treasure-trove feeling in connection with the 
eggs continues in full force. I infer from the above and other 
observations that the shattuck bunting breeds twice, if not three 
times each season with us; it leaves the ‘‘ big plain ” about the end 
of September. (Zhompson-Seton.) Builds in rose bushes, snow- 
berry and wolf-willows generally from one to two feet from the 
ground ; in size it is about three inches in diameter, but the cavity 
is less than two inches across. The nest is built of the stems of 
finer grasses and quite an open structure lined inside with coarse 
dark horse-hair, other nests were lined with white hair; in June, 
1896, two nests were taken at Sewell, Manitoba, each contained 
