338 BIRD-LIFE IN WESTERN CANADA 



uplifting and exalting influence. No where else does one 

 see so much of the world and yet seem so much a part of it. 



After a sea voyage in a sailing vessel where, of neces- 

 sity, one constantly watches the heavens, I have been im- 

 pressed by the narrow outlook one has in a wooded region. 

 But on the Plains, the atmospheric phenomena of half a 

 continent seem spread around one, and because of the 

 greater diversity of the surface conditions, they are far 

 more varied than at sea. I have seen six distinct storms 

 streaking the sky at the same moment, each one separated 

 from the other by clear sky or variously colored clouds ; 

 clouds, too, such as one sees only on the Plains, for, after all 

 is said, the glory of the Plains is their clouds. 



If the life of a wooded country were as easily observed 

 as that of the Plains, their faunas might be more readily 

 compared, but we have as yet no complete census of even 

 the vertebrate forms of a single square mile of forest; 

 while on the Plains virtually everything above ground is 

 visible as far as the eye can detect it ; the herds of cattle and 

 sheep ; a bunch of antelope with heads up, watching keenly ; 

 a coyote sneaking off and looking back over his shoulder ; a 

 kit fox, trotting briskly and unconcernedly ; a badger -flow- 

 ing over the grass toward his home ; ground squirrels scur- 

 rying for their holes or sitting erect at the entrance and pip- 

 ing shrilly ; all form part of the readily observable mammal- 

 life of a typical Plains scene. 



The last three weeks of June, 1908, were devoted by 

 Louis Fuertes and myself to field work on the Plains about 

 Crane Lake and Big Stick Lake, respectively about twenty 

 miles east and twenty-five miles north of Maple Creek. The 

 demands of special collecting and the shortness of the time, 

 permitted us to gain only a general idea of the character of 

 the avifauna as a whole, without attemping detailed studies 

 of certain species. 



When compared with that of Shoal Lake in Manitoba, 

 the bird-life of Maple Creek region is distinguished first, by 



