NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF MANITOBA. 128 
the hungry fire. If prairie-fires had been by some means 
arrested fifty years since, Manitoba would to-day have been a 
densely-wooded, instead of a prairie, country. ‘The fire, too, 
annually destroys the young trees that spring up. In the 
moister parts, where lakes and ponds arrest the progress of 
the fires, extensive woods of poplar are found, in which many 
woodland birds are able to find a home, even though Manitoba is 
essentially a prairie country. Of the excessive fertility of the 
prairie soil there is no question. 
The American Robin, Turdus migratorius, is a common bird 
among the trees on the sand-hills and in the bluffs, where it also 
breeds. 
An almost equally common species in similar situations, and 
in the willow-clumps on the prairies, is the Cat-bird, Mimus caro- 
linensis. It is a bird not easily overlooked, for on entering any 
dense copse one is almost certain to have several peering through 
the foliage and incessantly uttering their loud, harsh, and 
extremely cat-like mew, especially if the nest be near at hand. 
It approaches very close, and is easy to shoot. I found it 
breeding in a fringe of willows beside the creek which intersects 
the dry, treeless prairie round Moose Jaw, 398 miles west of 
Winnipeg. 
The Long-tailed Chickadee, Parus atricapillus septentrionalis, 
is the only Tit I remember observing, and I believe it does not 
breed in Manitoba. I shot the first specimen on September 14th ; 
two days later a pair entered a room in which I was sitting, and 
I captured them. The ‘“‘ chickadee-dee-dee” of this species is 
unmistakable. 
Sitta carolinensis was not an abundant species, but I brought 
home one specimen. 
On one occasion I was told that a Wren, T'rroglodytes aédon, 
had built its nest in the pocket of a coat hung on the door of a 
ferryman’s house on the Souris River. 
The Shore Lark, Eremophila alpestris, is a common species, 
breeding on the prairie throughout Manitoba, probably raising 
more than one brood in the course of the year. 
The eggs and nest of the Connecticut Warbler, Opornis agilis, 
taken by Mr. Seton in the extensive tamarac swamp south of 
Carberry, are now in the Smithsonian Institution. They are, 
I believe, the first that have been taken. 
