596 THE BIRDS OF MANITOBA — THOMPSON. 



less SO than at Biitle. On the Big Plain where there are no alkaline 

 flats; I have noted it but once or twice. The general habits of this 

 bird are much like those of the Savanna Sparrow. While singing it is 

 usually perched on some tuft of grass, each foot grasping a number of 

 stalks to furnish support. When discovered, it flits low over the flat 

 and drops into the grass. A number of the specimens taken were 

 rather larger than the measurements commonly given. 



189. Amniodramus lecontei. Lecoute's Sparrow. 



Abundant summer resident of willow bottom-lands in the Assini- 

 boine boundary near Mouse Eiver (Cones). Near Winnipeg: " Sharp- 

 tailed fluch ; " summer resident ; tolerably common (Lline). Carberry : 

 Abundant summer resident; breeding in willow sloughs and grassy 

 flats; Fingerboard; West slope of Duck Mountain, abundant; breed- 

 , ing (Thompson). Portage la Prairie : Eare summer resident in the 

 large grass marshes near Portage la Prairie ; may perhaps occur in 

 larger numbers than is supposed, as it skulks m rank herbage and is 

 difiBcult to flush, even with good spaniels (Nash). 



In the afternoon of June 26, 1882, while riding after the cattle through 

 the scrubby bottom land that skirts the eastern sloughy I started a 

 small sparrow from its nest. I dismounted and almost immediately 

 found it ; it was by a willow bush, and although apparently on the 

 ground it was raised G inches or more above the wet by a matted tan- 

 gle of twigs and grass on which it was placed. It was composed 

 entirely of fine grass, and contained three eggs. The old bird hurried 

 with rustling flight into the willow thicket and continued flitting about 

 or threading the mazes of the copse, and uttering from time to time 

 their peculiar and characteristic " tweete .'" which was of that ventrilo- 

 quial ambiguiiy that makes it diflicnlt to place unless the bird is in 

 sight. I had no gun, and knew I would not again be in that region 

 for weeks, so I took the nest and eggs, not knowing the importance of 

 the find. One of the eggs is f by .^, was of a delicate pearly pink 

 before, pure wdiite after blowing — with a few spots of brownish-black 

 towards the larger end. I afterwards became quite familiar with Le- 

 coute's Sparrow and am satisfied that it was the species whose nest I 

 found on this occasion. — E. E. T., 1885. 



This beautiful sparrow abounds in Manitoba wherever there are 

 meadows that offer the right combination of willow scrub and sedgy 

 grass. 



Abont the 5th of May it returns to the Big Plain. At first it is seen 

 creeping about among the red willow scrub and last year's sedge along 

 by the sloughs, and uttering a peculiar "tweete," whence I knew this 

 species as the willow-tweet long ere I had heard of Leconte or of any 

 scientific name for the bird. This note is one of these very thin, sharp 

 sounds that are so misleading by their ventriloquial character that one 

 does not know in what direction to look for the " tweeter." On first 



