490 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
ground, lined with a little dried grass; nest on the open prairie in 
short grass; rare at the Cypress hills, only one specimen seen in a 
week. (Spreadborough.) Quite common at Brandon, Man., and 
Moose Jaw, Sask., in 1896. This is a common bird everywhere on 
the prairie from Indian Head, Sask., westward to Frenchman river; 
this species, the horned lark and McCowan’s bunting make up nearly 
the whole avi-fauna of the absolute prairie. It is exclusively a 
prairie bird and is more or less common in all country traversed 
in 1895 to Milk river. No nests were taken before June 18th, though 
in the preceding year young were hatched before that date. (Ma- 
coun.) I have found this bird breeding abundantly throughout-the 
prairie parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It was especially 
numerous on the prairie north of Moose Jaw, Sask., where during 
the first week of June, 1891, I found many nests on the ground at 
the side of sods and containing five or six eggs each. (W. Raine.) 
BREEDING NotTEes.—My first specimens were secured July 14th, 
1873, at which dates the early broods were already on wing. Uniting 
of several families had scarcely begun, however, nor were small 
flocks made up, apparently, till the first broods had, as a general 
thing, been left to themselves, the parents busying themselves with 
a second set of eggs. Then straggling troops, consisting chiefly of 
birds of the year, were almost continually seen, mixing freely with 
Baird’s buntings and the skylarks; in fact, most of the congregations 
of prairie birds that were successively disturbed by our advancing 
wagon-trains consisted of all three of these, with a considerable 
sprinkling of Savanna sparrows, shore-larks and bay-winged buntings. 
The first eggs I secured were July 18th, nearly a week after I had 
found young on wing; these were fresh; other nests examined at the 
same time contained newly hatched young. Again, I have found 
fresh eggs so late as the first week in August. During the second 
season, the first eggs were taken July 6th, and at that time there 
were already plenty of young birds flying. The laying-season must 
consequently reach over a period of at least two months. I was 
not on the ground early enough to determine the commencement 
exactly, but supposing a two weeks’ incubation, and about the same 
length of time occupied in rearing the young in the nest, the first 
batch of eggs must be laid early in June to give the sets of young 
which fly by the first of July. There is obviously time for the first 
pair to get a second, if not a third, brood off their hands by the 
