In North- West Canada. 75 



on the banks of the North Saskatchewan. On walking- 

 through some long grass around the lake we flushed a gadwall 

 duck off its nest ; it flew into the water amongst the other 

 ducks, many of which were swimming about with their young 

 ones. The nest consisted of a hollow scooped out of the sand, 

 which was snugly lined with down, and contained nine eggs, 

 which are pale buff and very similar to those of the European 

 widgeon. The eggs were partly incubated and average in size 

 2-10x1-60. 



As it was one o'clock, we sat down and had our lunch of 

 antelope sandwiches, but we were so thirsty we had some diffi- 

 culty in disposing of them, and had to go down to the lake 

 and take a couple of handfuls of alkaline water to wash 

 the sandwiches down. After resting awhile and watching the 

 various movements of the ducks, geese and other waterfowl 

 on the lake, we got up and followed the lake round its north- 

 ern shore, disturbing numerous marbled godwits, avosets, kil- 

 deers, phalaropes, and several species of small sandpipers we 

 could not identify ; we had not brought a gun with us, or else 

 we might have secured several rare species of sandpipers. 

 We spent two hours in rambling round the shores of the lake, 

 and, finding no more eggs, we struck out across the prairie in 

 the direction of home. We met a prairie wolf coming to- 

 wards the lake ; he did not turn back, but kept a few hundred 

 yards to the north of us, he kept stopping and looking at us 

 and then ran along a little farther and stopped again, and 

 eyed us once more ; we hallooed at him, and he ran off tow r ards 

 the lake : probably he was after a duck for his evening meal. 



While tramping across the prairie we startled up a small 

 bird from the grass and were pleased to find a nest of that 

 rare bird, Sprague's pipit. The nest was like that of a shore 

 lark or longspur, and made of dry grass. It was sunk below 

 the surface of the surrounding soil, under shelter of a tussock 

 of grass, and contained five eggs. They are greyish white, 

 freckled all over with purplish grey, averaging in size 

 0.90x0.62. Another clutch of five eggs in my collection was 

 taken near Crescent Lake, May 31st, 1890. They are greyish- 



