THE PRAIRIES 



335 



thickly populated with birds, that the erection of the most 

 inconspicuous kind of a blind aroused their suspicion and I 

 learned little more of them than is conveyed by the photo- 

 graphs of their nests with eggs and young. 



A " reef " north of the Narrows was so thickly covered 

 with the nests of Double-crested Cormorants, that appar- 

 ently not a site was left unoccupied. The black, half -naked 



Young Double-crested Cormorants and Nests 



young, with rapidly palpitating pouches, sat panting in 

 their nests, crying like puppies. Both they and their home 

 were as unattractive as birds and their haunts can well 

 be. A perch, brought by an adult as food, was said by my 

 boatman not to have been found in Shoal Lake, where 

 pickerel abound. It had possibly been captured in Lake 

 Manitoba. 



My failure to establish intimate relations with the small 

 colony of White Pelicans nesting in the lake, is related be- 



