574 THE BIRDS OF MANITOBA THOMPSON. 



mou (Coues). From 60 miles south of Red River Settlement (Blakiston). 

 Dufferin: Arrives between April 25 aud 30 (Dawson). Winnipeg: 

 Summer resident; abundant (Hine). Ossowa: Common breeding; 1885, 

 first seen on A|)ril 6 ; next seen April 15 ; became common on April 

 19 (Wagner). Shoal Lake (Gunn). Shoal Lake: May 16, 1887 (Christy). 

 Oak Point : 1884, arrive May 17 ; first seen, one, on April 9 ; next seen 

 on 10th ; became common on 13th ; breed here (Small). Portage la 

 Prairie: Common summer resident; arrives about April 10, departs 

 about the middle of October ; in 1884, first seen, A[)ril 15 ; in 1883 saw 

 it in March (Nash). Carberry and the Big Plain, generally, to the 

 Fingerboard; conimonsummer resident near Turtle Mountain, Brandon, 

 Milford (Thon)pson). Abundant on the i)rairie along the route marked ; 

 not seen in the Winnipegosis region (Macoun). Two riv^ers : 1885, first 

 seen, one, on April 16; next seen, April 17; fairly common; breeds 

 (Criddle). Daltou : 1889, first seen on March 26 ; next seen on March 

 28, when it becamecommon; breeds here (Youmans). Shell River: 1885, 

 first seen, one male, on April 12 ; a common summer resident, and breeds 

 here (Calcutt). Qu'Appelle : Common summer resident; breeds; ar- 

 rives April 5 (Guernsey). 



April 17, 1882 : The i)rairies are showing brown in places, and snow- 

 banks are settling and losing their whiteness, through the grass that 

 begins to show through them. Three Meadow Larks alighted on the 

 fence to day, quite near to me, and one of them delighted me by vocife- 

 rating his short rich song with a beauty 1 never before heard. 



Ai)ril 18: On Sunday we saw a few Meadow Larks about; on Monday 

 the number v\as increased and an occasional jingle was heard ; but to- 

 day (Tuesday) at dawn scores of larks had appeared, and, as if by 

 concert, all together burst into an exi>losiou of splendid song, gushing 

 out their rich, strong warblings from every little height and perch, 

 singing with all their might; singing, as if under pressure; sing they 

 must; perched on a fence, perched on a clod, running on the ground 

 or fiying high in the air, they sing and must sing aloud for the spring ; 

 singing they saw the dawn and the noon and the evening, and still 

 they sang on till night came and the prairies were hidden in darkness, 

 then for a while they ceased ; but the rising of the yellow moon above 

 the eastern fringe of trees was loudly hailed by many of the joyous 

 birds and greeted with a renewal of this morning's burst of song. 



April 27 : Fall of snow last night, but this morning it changed to 

 rain, aud by 10 a. m. no snow remained. A Meadow Lark contrived to 

 sing in all the pelting shower ; he was not 100 yards from the door; so I 

 took the telescope, paper, and pencil and made a sketch of him. 



May 5: Took special notes on the position of Meadow Larks while 

 singing to-day. Altogether, 1 observed twelve that were in full song; 

 of these, nine were singing on trees, two in the air, and one on the 

 ground. Their song, when on the wing, is entirely different from that 



