CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 99 
House and Oxford House and afew were seen every dav between 
Knee lake and York Factory. As it breeds chiefly in poplar trees, 
it will be found generally breeding where these trees are in profu- 
sion. The writer has found this bird breeding on Buffalo lake, 
near Methye portage, in lat. 56° N. Spreadborough observed it 
from the mouth of Lesser Slave river to Peace River Landing and 
Ross says it extends to the Arctic coast in the Mackenzie River 
valley, and is not rare. 
This is an extremely rare bird on the western and northern coasts 
of Alaska. In four years I saw only four birds. It is a common 
duck in the interior, and reaches the mouth of the Yukon in the 
breeding season. (Nelson.) I am confident that a flock of ducks 
seen about 25 miles above Circle City, Alaska, Aug. 12, 1899, were 
this species or C. islandica. (Bishop.) It winters on the west 
coast from Unalaska (Turner) to the Fraser river and Lake Okan- 
agan, where it is abundant. (Brooks.) Seen by Spreadborough at 
Douglas, Hope, Penticton, Sidley and Elko, B.C., and recorded by 
Brooks as common during migrations in the Cariboo district, B. C. 
BREEDING Notes.—A small flock of these birds was observed 
about the Bay of Quinté, Lake Ontario, in August, 1897, and two 
or three were shot a little later; it is very probable a pair or two 
nested not far off. (Rev. C. J. Young.) 
This bird prefers to nest in a tree some fifteen or twenty-five feet 
from the ground. The nest is composed of grass, leaves and moss, 
and lined with feathers. The eggs, eight or more in number, are of an 
ashy-green colour. It lays about the middle of May, or later. In 
1894 a pair of these birds built near a large pond within a short 
distance of Templeton, Que., a few miles from Ottawa, and raised 
a small brood of five. On the 23rd of June these youngsters were 
quite able to dive and follow the old bird twenty yards under water. 
(G. R. White.) 
Fairly common in Manitoba and Alberta. Downy young shot 
at Reaburn, Manitoba, July 4th, 1893. (Dzippie.) In June, 1892, 
at Deep lake, Indian Head, Sask., various nests of this species were 
taken in hollow trees. One was found in a hollow cottonwood, 
about fifteen feet from the ground, and another in a hollow elm 
tree, about twenty-five feet from the ground. This nest was made 
of rotten wood lined with down. Another was in an elm stub, and. 
7M 
