114 Bird-Nesting 



Spitzbergen, also in Greenland. The eggs of this bird are 

 rare and difficult to procure. Two eggs in my collection were 

 collected in Siberia, June 4th, 1887. They are creamy buff* 

 and measure 2.78x2.00, and 2.73x2.03. 



I was also informed that Esquimaux curlews were exceed- 

 ingly abundant about Moosejaw early in May of the present 

 year. My companion shot quite a number of them, and said 

 they were found in nocks of nearly a hundred. They left 

 about the second week in May for the north, where they breed 

 in great numbers in the Anderson river region. Mr. MacFar- 

 lane found them nesting on the Arctic coast, east of the Ander- 

 son river, late in June. The nest is a mere depression in the 

 ground, lined with leaves and grasses. The eggs vary to the 

 great extent usually witnessed among waders. The ground is 

 olive drab, tending either to green, grey or brown in different 

 instances; the markings, always large, numerous and bold, 

 are of different depths of dark chocolate, bistre and sepia 

 brown, with the ordinary stone grey shell spots. They always 

 tend to aggregate at the larger end, or, at least, are more 

 numerous in the major half of the egg : occasionally the butt 

 end of the egg is almost completely occupied by a confluence 

 of very dark markings. The average size is 2.00x1.45. 



We rowed up the creek for two miles, collecting a number 

 of clutches of bronzed grackles ; their large, clumsy looking 

 nests were built in the willow bushes growing along the mar- 

 gin of the creek. Blue-headed vireos were numerous, but we 

 did not succeed in obtaining either skins or eggs of this species. 

 A pair of shoveller ducks evidently had a nest as they showed 

 signs of uneasiness as we rowed around a swampy spot, but 

 the water was too shallow to row the boat through this 

 swamp >and the mud at the bottom was too thick and treach- 

 erous to wade through it. A large hawk flew from a nest in 

 a tree top, up the banks of the creek, and settled in a decayed 

 tree a short distance off. With the aid of my field glass I 

 saw it was a ferruginous rough-legged buzzard. We left 

 the boat and scrambled up the steep banks, and soon arrived 

 at the foot of the tree. The nest was only about thirty feet 



