112 Bird-Next in <} 



CHAPTER XV. 



UNE 15th. Back again at Moosejaw, having ar- 

 rived here last night from Rush Lake. I obtained 

 the loan of a boat, and two of us set out to explore 

 Moosejaw Creek. My companion, a local sports- 

 man, took his gun along with him. First we rowed 

 to a post that stood in the water, for here a wood- 

 pecker's nest had been found a few days previously. 

 On arriving at the post a few blows caused the woodpecker 

 to fly out of the hole and it settled on another post close by. 

 It w T as the red-headed woodpecker, and after some trouble I 

 reached the seven eggs, which I found resting on bits of 

 decayed wood, nearly a foot below the entrance. The eggs 

 were partly incubated. In this prairie region where trees are 

 scarce, woodpeckers make their nests in the telegraph poles 

 along the railway, and they frequently lay their eggs in holes 

 under the roofs of farm houses and barns. We shot specimens 

 of black terns, marbled godwits, red-winged starlings and 

 other common birds, and took several clutches of eggs of tin- 

 latter species. The nests Vere all suspended between growing 

 rushes and were composed of fine rushes and grass. We 

 flushed a rusty blackbird from one of the numerous islands 

 at the ponds south of Moosejaw, through which the creek 

 runs, and later 011 found its nest, which was built on the 

 ground in a tussock of grass, and was made of tine grasses. 

 etc., and contained four eggs of a greyish green ground color. 

 thickly spotted with reddish brown and purple, averaging in 

 si/c l.0()x.75. The rusty grackle is common between Winni- 

 peg and Portage-la-Prairie, usually making its nest on the 

 ground like a song sparrow. The eggs vary to a great extent, 

 in some the ground colour is pale green, others have a grey 

 or olive given ground, and they are generally well spotted 

 and Notched with various shades of In-own and purple grey 



