THE PRAIRIES 317 



reed forests with just a strip of blue water appearing over 

 their tops; there were the prairie flowers roses, lilies, 

 harebells, anemones and many others some of which we 

 transplanted in their thick bit of turf to form a garden at 

 our tent door; and in preparation for the almost daily 

 thunder storms, there were cloud effects such as I have 

 never seen exceeded elsewhere. 



Shoal Lake, first made known to ornithologists by 

 Donald Gunn in 1868, is some thirty miles long with an 

 average width of ten miles in its southern third, and of 

 about three miles in its northern two-thirds. Its shores, for 

 the greater part, are widely margined with densely growing 

 quill reeds, which attain a height of from six to eight feet 

 above the water. Where the fringe of reeds is a mile or 

 more in width, the shore of the lake can be reached only by 

 following the narrow water ways that wind through them. 



The northern end of Shoal Lake is thickly wooded with 

 poplar, but I saw little of this region, my work being in the 

 main confined to the vicinity of our camp where the abund- 

 ance of bird-life left time only for trips to the islands in the 

 lake. Here the country is more open, wide stretches of fer- 

 tile prairie with its rich growth of grasses, being dotted 

 with groves of small poplars. 



In the slightly lower ground, bordering the line of reeds 

 which marked the edge of the lake, the grasses were denser 

 and there were occasional small sloughs. So flat is the coun- 

 try that from the higher ground near our camp, the water of 

 the lake was barely visible over the tops of the reeds. 



Well out in the lake are a number of small islands. In 

 some instances, they are formed of only a few great rocks 

 with a beach of pebbles when they are known locally as 

 "reefs." Such islands were inhabited by Double-crested 

 Cormorants, California Gulls, Common Terns, and one held 

 a small group of White Pelicans, as described in the chapter 

 devoted to that species. 



Other and larger islands were grown with grasses, reeds, 



