Vol. XXIV 



J907 ] Bent, Suvimer Birds of Southwestern Saskatchewan. 407 



SUMMER BIRDS OF SOUTHWESTERN 

 SASKATCHEWAN. 



BY A. C. BENT. 



Plates XVII-XX. 



The development of the great Northwest, the extension of its 

 progressive railroad systems, with new towns constantly springing 

 up and all of the older towns and cities rapidly increasing in size, 

 the steadily increasing movement of American, Canadian and 

 foreign settlers westward and northward, and the inducements 

 offered by the Canadian government and the railroads for opening 

 up new and desirable lands for agricultural purposes, are making 

 such rapid and marked changes in the great wild-fowl breeding 

 grounds of northwest Canada, that it seems worth while to record 

 the conditions as we found them during the summers of 1905 and 

 1006. Even during the one year intervening between my two visits 

 to this region, the change was so striking as to indicate the passing 

 away within the near future of nearly all of the great breeding 

 resorts of this interesting region. Many of the rarer, shyer and 

 larger birds have already disappeared and the others are being 

 rapidly driven farther northward and westward, beyond the reach. 

 of railroads and beyond the cultivated lands of the ranchmen. 

 The disappearance of the birds is not due to persecution, as they 

 are seldom killed, and their eggs are not often taken for food, 

 but the prairies are being cultivated, the sloughs are being drained 

 and the whole country is being settled up so rapidly that they will 

 soon have no suitable breeding grounds left. 



Our observations were conducted mainly along the line of the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway from a few miles west of the eastern 

 boundary of Alberta to about fifty miles east of said boundary in 

 that portion of Saskatchewan which was known as Assiniboia 

 prior to 1906; and we explored, more or less thoroughly, much of 

 the intervening territory, including the Cypress Hills, twenty miles 

 south of the railroad and Big Stick Lake, thirty miles north of the 

 railroad. We visited nearly all of the lakes from Many Island 



