NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF MANITOBA. 129 
only three or four wore the adult bluish ash-coloured dress, but 
Mr. Seton says that adult specimens are much more often seen 
at the time of the spring migration. This bird often comes and 
inspects the settlers’ chickens, but seldom carries off any except 
very young ones—gophers, mice, and grasshoppers being its usual 
prey. It is exceedingly easy to shoot, and one or two dead ones 
may often be seen lying round a farmer’s house. The Harrier 
became a much scarcer bird as September wore on. 
The Turkey Buzzard, Cathartes aura, is probably now a less 
common bird than when the Buffalo was an inhabitant of the 
prairies, but is still not unfrequently seen, especially if there be 
a dead horse or other animal in the neighbourhood. Its powers 
of flight are magnificent. 
On the evening of September 4th a flock of sixteen noisy 
Wild Geese flew with a swift flight over Carberry to the south- 
eastward. They formed the vanguard of the great army of 
migratory birds which, going northward in the spring to breed 
in myriads on the shores of the Arctic Sea, returns south again 
in the autumn with its numbers increased by the yearling birds. 
After the date mentioned, the migration among wildfowl and 
raptorial birds became much more marked. Goshawks, Astur 
atricapillus, though formerly unseen, became fairly common. 
The Peregrine, Falco peregrinus, hitherto scarce, was now the 
reverse, though still not very numerous. On the 11th one 
perched on a fence close to the house; I was just on the point of 
firing at him with a rifle, when he rose; then, after sailing once 
over the chickens, he hovered over them for nearly half a minute 
as cleverly as any Kestrel could have done—indeed, so stationary 
in the air was the bird that I essayed a shot, but the bullet 
missed. 
About this time, too, Buzzards became much more numerous. 
On the 14th an old male specimen of Swainson’s Buzzard, Buteo 
swainsoni, in very ragged plumage, was brought to me. 
The migration among raptorial birds at this period was made 
still more obvious by the decrease, as already mentioned, of the 
Harriers, and by the sudden increase in the numbers of the 
beautiful little American Kestrel, or as it is always called, the 
“Sparrow Hawk,” Falco sparverius. Although I had during 
the summer found this in fair abundance in the woods and 
among the trees growing on the sand-hills (where it breeds in 
