A Season's. Field Work 



261 



and Canvas-back Ducks. About the grassy borders of the lakes and sloughs, 

 Mallards, Gadwalls, Pintails, Widgeon, Blue-winged Teal and other Ducks 

 nested. These species were also found on islands in the lakes where alone the 

 Wild Goose was known to nest, while some small islets were virtually covered 

 by hosts of Gulls and Pelicans. 



On the prairies, Long-billed Curlew, Marbled Godwits and Bartramian 

 Sandpipers laid their eggs. The region has well been called the nursery of wild 

 fowl, as at one time were our border states to the south. But the advance of civili- 

 zation, which first transforms a bufifalo range to a cattle country, and later to a 



>-^^. 



CAMP AT PTARMIGAN PASS 



wheat ranch, has already reached the early stages of its agricultural development 

 about Maple Creek, and the forced retreat of the wild fowl to the more remote 

 north is only a question of time. The Canadian Government would do well to 

 set aside some of its still unsettled lands as permanent breeding reservations, to 

 which each vear, the water-fowls could return to nest. Such reservations would 

 in truth be nurseries, and, in permitting a bird to reproduce, would be of infin- 

 itely more importance than preserves which afford protection only during the 

 winter. 



Near Maple Creek, materials were secured for groups of Wild Geese, Western 

 and Eared Grebes, the Long -billed Curlew and Bartramian Sandpiper, due 

 permission having first been received from the chief game guardian of the Province. 

 The lack of timber and of drinking water made this region poor camping-ground, 



