In North-West Canada. 59 



CHAPTER X. 



UNE llth. Soon after breakfast this morning, the 

 manager of the farm drove up to the house with 

 his buckboard and team of horses, accompanied by 

 three deerhounds, two setters and a water spaniel. 

 Taking sufficient victuals to last us for the day, three 

 of us started out with light hearts. The dogs, however, 

 made it a difficult task to find any eggs, as they ran along 

 some distance in front of us, and disturbed the field plovers, 

 curlews and godwits off their nests. On our way we stopped 

 at a small slough where a pair of marbled godwits evidently 

 had a nest, and after some trouble we succeeded in finding it. 

 The nest was built in the centre of a tussock of grass and con- 

 tained four eggs, olive drab in colour, spotted with umber 

 brown, averaging 2.25x1.60. After a twelve miles enjoyable 

 drive over the hilly prairie, the lake appeared in sight and we 

 were soon driving along its southern shore. John and myself 

 alighted and began to scour the beach, while the manager 

 walked his horses slowly around the lake to find a suitable 

 camping ground. This lake was about four miles long by two 

 broad and swarmed with Canada geese, American widgeons, 

 shovellers, scaups, gadwalls, pintails, mallards and other ducks, 

 while feeding along its sandy beach were numerous avosets, 

 curlews, godwits, kildeers, sandpipers and herring, Franklin's 

 and Bonaparte's gulls. Many of the ducks and geese had 

 young ones swimming around them, and had I visited this 

 lake six weeks earlier, I should no doubt have found a number 

 of nests and eggs of ducks and geese. This lake lies sheltered 

 between the hills, just south of the Saskatchewan river, and 

 is seldom visited by human beings, consequently the water- 

 fowl are very tame and were swimming about just a short dis- 

 tance from the shore. Our first find was a nest of the pallid- 

 horned lark and two cowbird's eggs. The nest was made of 



