CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 657 
vidual in the country. They appear to have totally disappeared. 
This is unquestionably owing to the breaking up of the virgin 
prairie. (Zhompson-Seton.) Acommon summer resident at Avenue, 
Manitoba; arrives about April 23rd and leaves about the middle 
of September. (JVorman Criddle.) Heard numerous individuals 
singing in the east end of the Cypress Hills and saw one the last 
week in June, 1894. Undoubtedly breeding at this time. (Spread- 
borough.) 
BREEDING Notes.—I did not see the bird in the immediate 
vicinity of the Red River, and do not think I should have over- 
looked it had any individuals been breeding about Pembina, 
where I was every day in the field for more than a month collecting 
very assiduously. Passing the low range of the Pembina Moun- 
tains, however, I at once entered the prairie region, where it was 
breeding in great numbers, in company with Baird’s and the 
chestnut-collared buntings. The first one I shot, July 14th, was a 
bird of the year, already full grown and on wing, and as I found 
scarcely fledged young at least a month later I judge that, like the 
Eremophila, the bird raises two broods a year. Travelling west- 
ward to and beyond the second crossing of the Mouse River, no 
day passed that I did not see numbers of the birds; and at some 
of our camps, notably that at the first crossing of the Mouse 
River, they were so numerous that the air seemed full of them; 
young ones were caught by the hand in the camp, and many might 
have been shot without stirring from my tent, as they hovered 
overhead on tremulous wings, uttering coatinuously their sharp 
querulous cry. They continued abundant through the greater 
part of September, in which month the renewal of the plumage is 
completed, and some still remained on the ground till October. 
Exactly when they migrate, however, and where they go to, or 
when they return, are equally unknown to me—not the least 
singular point in the bird’s history is the success with which it has 
eluded observation during the winter months. (Cowes.) Breeds 
throughout Assiniboia, but rarer in Manitoba. During my several 
expeditions to northwest Canada I have found over half a dozen 
mests of this bird: “At Crescent) Lake, Assa., June 1sth; roo2, I 
found a nest containing four eggs, built in the grass on the prairie. 
On May 25th, 1901, a set of five eggs was collected for me by Mr. 
Hugh Richardson in the Qu’Appelle valley, Assiniboia, and he 
took another set of five eggs on May 28th at the same place, both 
16% ; 
