1 74 Bird-Nesting 



the flowers disappear. Instead of the variety of colours so 

 splendidly lavished a few weeks ago there is only an unbroken 

 field of yellow, fast merging into white. It is now well on in 

 October. The days are cool, the nights cold. Winter is at 

 hand. Keen frosts kill all the remaining traces of vegetation, 

 but winter is not yet. The sun seems to sweep higher. The 

 atmosphere takes on a hazy and smoky look. The sun is red 

 during the day and at his setting. The frosts cease and the 

 Indian summer of the North-West sets in. Day in and day 

 out, often for weeks, this delicious afterglow, during which 

 existence is a luxury, continues. Then the sun sinks low again 

 and frost puts an end to farming operations, and the winter 

 fairly commences a winter terrible to the inexperienced for 

 its length and severity, but perhaps the most enjoyable season 

 of the year to Canadians. 



Professor Hind, speaking about the prairie, describes its 

 extraordinary aspects in the following graphic language : " It 

 must be seen at sunrise, when the vast plain suddenly flashes 

 with rose-coloured light, as the rays of the sun sparkle in the 

 dew on the long rich grass, gently stirred by the unfailing 

 morning breeze. It must be seen at noon-day, when refrac- 

 tion swells into the forms of distant hill ranges, the ancient 

 beaches and ridges of Lake Winnipeg which mark its former 

 extension ; when each willow bush is magnified into a grove, 

 each far distant clump of aspens, not seen before, into wide 

 forests, and the outline of wooded river banks, far beyond un- 

 assisted vision, rise into view. It must be seen at sunset, 

 when just as the ball of fire is dipping below the horizon, he 

 throws a flood of red light indescribably magnificent upon 

 the illimitable waving green, the columns blending and separ- 

 ating with the gentle roll of the long grass, seemingly magni- 

 fied toward the horizon into the distant heaving swell of a 

 parti-coloured sea. It must be seen too by moonlight, when 

 the summits of the low green grass waves are dipped with 

 silver, and the stars in the west suddenly disappear as they 

 touch the earth. Finally, it must be seen at night, when the 

 distant prairies are in a blaze, thirty, fifty, or seventy miles 



