658 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
nests were made of dried grass and built on the ground. I have 
another set of four eggs taken at Pasqua, western Assiniboia, 
- May 26th, 1893. The eggs of this bird are very rare in collections. 
They are something like eggs of the prairie horned lark but are 
smaller. Some have a pale buff ground, others greyish-white 
ground, minutely speckled with buff and purplish grey. The 
eggs can easily be told from small prairie horned lark’s eggs by 
the fine dark brown hair lines at the largest end of the eggs. I 
never saw these hair lines on eggs of the horned lark, although 
they are often found on eggs of the American pipit and European 
meadow pipit. This bird is called the Missouri skylark by the 
settlers as it has the same habit as the European skylark of soar- 
ing high up in the air until it becomes a mere speck in the sky and 
it never ceases singing from the time it begins to ascend until it 
reaches the earth again. It is a smaller bird than the European 
skylark and consequently its voice is: not so powerful. I have 
often heard both species sing and must say Sprague’s pipit is not 
in it with the European skylark, in spite of what has been said to 
the contrary by American ornithologists. (W. Raine.) 
Famity LI. CINCLIDAS. Diprers. 
CCXXXVII. CINCLUS. BEcuSTEIN. 1802. 
701. American Dipper. 
Cinclus mexicanus SWAINS. 1827. 
Observed one on Elbow River, southwest of Calgary, July 15th, 
1897; common in Michell Creek, west of Crow’s Nest Pass, 
August 7th, 1897. (Spreadborough.) J met with this bird in num- 
bers around Chief Mountain Lake, but was too late for its eggs, 
asthe young were already on the wing. (Coues.) A very com- 
mon species in all the mountain streams from Banff through the 
Rocky Mountains tothe Selkirks and Gold Range. Its habit of 
living beside and behind waterfalls and small cascades adds a 
great deal of interest to a study of its habits; one nest found in 
the Kicking Horse River was placed on a ledge behind a small 
waterfall and contained young birds on August 13th, 1885 ; at a 
distance it looked like a large mass of wet moss,but on examination 
it proved to be a nest shaped like an oven. (Macoun.) Very common 
in the rocky creeks west of the Columbia River on the goth parallel 
