THE NIDIOLOGIST. 



105 



lyong before we reached Reed Lake it had 

 become dark, and the coyotes were heard 

 barking on all sides. It was a long, weary- 

 tramp, but the mare made straight for 

 home, and we followed her, and at last a 

 welcome light gleamed before us and we 

 were within sight of the farm, and the 

 hounds soon let them know we were com- 

 ing. The first mare had arrived nearly 

 two hours before us, and the ranchman saw 

 that it had broken loose and had concluded 

 we should have to walk home. 



Next morning Harry and myself mounted 

 the two mares and rode back to the lake, 

 and brought home the wagon and its con- 

 tents. 



I spent the afternoon and evening on the 

 flats, but the mosquitoes were so vicious I 

 was glad to get back to the farm. The 

 cowbo5'S made smudge fires to keep off the 

 mosquitoes, and the horses soon came in 

 from the prairie and stood around the 

 smudge fires for protection from the venom- 

 ous pests. 



In the evening the scout left, but during 

 the day another ranchman had arrived from 

 Crane Lake, and when I met him at supper 

 I was agreeably surprised to find he was 

 from my native town — Leeds, England — 

 and he knew several of my English friends. 

 He invited me to his ranch at Crane Lake, 

 and I gladly accepted the offer. He in- 

 formed me that two days previous, while at 

 Balgonie, he had seen a nest and two eggs 

 of the Water Turkey, as the Little Brown 

 Crane is called in this region. He correct- 

 ly described the eggs, and on showing him 

 my specimen of the Whooping Crane col- 

 lected at Oak Lake, he said the eggs he saw 

 were similar in color but smaller in size. 

 He saw the Crane fly from a slough, and 

 riding around the margin he came across 

 the nest and two eggs. He wrote to the 

 farm manager at Balgonie to go and get the 

 eggs for me, but he could not find the place. 



June I. My last day at Reed Lake. 

 Spent the morning on the flats and collected 

 sets of Pintail, Sora Rail, Wilson's Phala- 

 rope, and other common birds. In the 



afternoon I shot a specimen of the Red- 

 breasted Nuthatch on the fence in front of 

 the farm; as there are no trees in this re- 

 gion, this bird makes its nest in holes in 

 the roofs of the barns. I was up until mid- 

 night blowing the eggs collected the day 

 previous. Next morning I took the train 

 westward to Crane Lakf, when I found my 

 new friend the English ranchman had gone 

 to Calgary, but before leaving he had told 

 the cowboys to drive me wherever I wished 

 to go. 



After dinner at the farm I visited the 

 lake south of the railway, and spent most 

 of the afternoon in trying to find a nest of 

 the Solitary Sandpiper. The two birds ran 

 along the beach and showed signs of hav- 

 ing a nest near by. I tried all sorts of 

 schemes to find the eggs, but the birds were 

 too wary for me, and at last I gave it up. 



The Solitary Sandpiper is easily dis- 

 tinguished from the Spotted Sandpiper by 

 its white spotless breast and underparts, 

 and by its back and wings, which are cov- 

 ered with small white spots. The eggs of 

 this bird are almost unknown in collec- 

 tions; I therefore have pleasure in describ- 

 ing a set of two eggs which were collected 

 for me at Moosejaw June 2, 1893. These 

 eggs are quite different to those of the Spot- 

 ted Sandpiper; they are smaller in size, and 

 resemble the eggs of the Little Ringed 

 Plover, but are somewhat larger, averaging 

 in size 1.25 x .90. 



The ground color is pale clay, and the 

 eggs are finely and evenly spotted all over 

 with black and shell markings of gray; 

 none of the spots are as large as a pin's 

 head, and the spots are not confluent about 

 the larger end of the eggs, as is usually 

 the case with eggs of the Spotted Sand- 

 piper; neither are the eggs so pyriform as 

 are most of the eggs of this family. 



After supper I went out and joined a 

 group of cowboys standing at the stable 

 door and having their razors ground by a 

 young Italian who was walking from Van- 

 couver to Winnipeg, a distance of nearly 

 fifteen hundred miles. The poor fellow 



