152 Bird-Nesting 



the lake for a mile or so, and then looking at my watch I saw 

 it was dinner time, so I returned to the horse and buggy and 

 had lunch. On my way to where the horse was feeding, I 

 came across a nest of four eggs of the killdeer. 



After resting awhile, I drove around the western shore of 

 the lake, tied the horse to a fence, and then examined the 

 rushes which fringed the lake. Yellow -headed blackbirds and 

 red-winged starlings swarmed amongst the rushes. 



Further on, I saw the rushes grew very thick, and the wild 

 rice stood six feet high, so I went in this direction, and dis- 

 turbed a number of ducks, but did not find their nests. I was 

 startled by a loon flopping out of the rushes ; it flew out towards 

 the lake, and settled some distance from the shore. A few 

 steps further, and I beheld its flat nest of rushes, with two 

 large, handsome eggs resting in a cavity at the top. The nest 

 was built near the water's edge, and consisted of a mass of 

 sedges and grass. The eggs were slightly incubated, and are 

 dark olive brown, spotted with black ; they measure 3.00x2.25, 

 and 3.55x2.20. 



The loon, or great northern diver, is a handsome bird, and 

 sometimes weighs as much as fourteen pounds. It is a com- 

 mon bird in Manitoba, and breeds around most of the lakes and 

 larger sloughs. It also breeds plentifully in Ontario, about the 

 Muskoka Lakes and around LakeSimcoe. It breeds regularly 

 all along the northern part of the United States, in Dakota, 

 Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and New York. In marshy 

 districts, this bird makes a nest of sedges, grass and sods near 

 the water's edge amongst the rushes, but in rocky districts, 

 like Muskoka in Ontario and the Adirondack Mountains in 

 northern New York, it makes no nest, but simply lays its eggs 

 in holes in the sand, or on the rocks near the water's edge. 



This bird is common in Iceland, from where I receive a num- 

 ber of clutches every year. The number of eggs to a clutch 

 is generally two, but occasionally as many as three eggs have 

 been found in a nest. They are rather late breeders, seldom ha\ 

 ing eggs before the middle of June. A set of two eggs before, me 

 were collected by J. W. Banks, at Ball's Lake, New Bruns- 



