REPORT ON ZOOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS ON THE LOWER 

 SASKATCHEWAN RIVER. 



By C. C, NUTTIXa. 



During the months of July and rVugust, 1891, the writer, 

 accompanied by Messrs. Frank Russell and A. G. Smith, was 

 engaged in collecting and studying the animals, particularly 

 mammals and birds, of the lower Saskatchewan River. Few 

 persons who have not visited that region have an accurate 

 conception of the extent of the water S3'stems in British 

 America. Here is a river, navigable for fourteen hundred 

 miles, emptying into a lake nearly three hundred miles long, 

 and both are little more than names to most people. Lake 

 Winnipeg receives most of its waters from two sources, the 

 Red River of the North flowing from the south into its 

 southern end, and the Saskatchewan River, flowing in an 

 easterly direction from the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains 

 to the northern end of the lake, a distance of almost two 

 thousand miles, as the river winds. Lakes Winnipegosis and 

 Manitoba, a short distance to the west of Winnipeg, are con- 

 nected with each other by the Waterhen River, and with 

 Lake Winnipeg by the Little Saskatchewan River. Lake 

 Winnipeg is connected with Hudson's Bay by Nelson River, 

 the whole forming a water system of vast extent, draining a 

 region from the Rocky Mountains to Hudson's Bay; a system 

 almost comparable in extent to that of the Mississippi River. 

 From the Saskatchewan River to the Polar Sea is one inex- 

 tricable maze of lakes, rivers and marshes, one of the great- 

 est palustral regions in the world, perhaps, and the breeding 

 place of most of our migratory birds. 



