264 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



hills and south to Milk river. It was common in the West Butte 

 and along St. Mary river north of the 49th parallel. It seems to be 

 purely a prairie species, not being recorded from the Saskatchewan. 



One was shot by me at Aweme, Man. They are doubtless over- 

 looked and taken for the rough-legged hawk. (Criddle.) A rare 

 breeding species but possibly increasing in number in Manitoba. The 

 first specimen recorded was taken north of Portage la Prairie, May 

 7th, 1898. It was an immature female and is still in my collection. 

 Travelling west, however, in 1906, we came into the regular range 

 of the species just west of Yorkton, Sask., and from that point to 

 Edmonton it was regularly and commonly noted. (Atkinson.) 



Breeding Notes. — ^A pair was seen at Indian Head, Sask., on 

 ist May, 1892. On i6th I shot a fine female that had a nest in a 

 dead poplar about twelve feet from the ground. The nest was made 

 of sticks and lined with dry grass and contained five eggs. Another 

 nest in live poplar had the same number of eggs and was Uned with 

 the inner bark of dead poplar. This bird was tolerably common all 

 summer. In May and June, 1894, a number of nests were found in 

 box elder (Negundo aceroides) at Medicine Hat, Crane lake, and 

 along Skull creek, and in the Cypress hills. In the summer of 1895, 

 they were found breeding in the same situation. I have found 

 their nests in poplar, cottonwood, box elder, upon "cut banks" 

 (clay cliffs) of streams, and upon clay domes in the "bad lands" 

 south of Wood mountain. In the spring of 1894 one pair built a 

 nest upon the tower of a windmiU at Langevin on the C. P. Ry. west 

 of Medicine Hat. - It had to be taken down, however, as it inter- 

 fered with the working of the mill. The highest nest I have seen was 

 not more than thirty feet from the ground. Nests were always near 

 water, but I think that this is more because the cut banks and trees 

 are usually along the streams and not for any preference that they 

 have for it. On nth June, 1894, took two nests at Crane lake, 

 Sask. Both contained young ones. The nests were very large. 

 One was built of sticks and cow dung lined with dry grass ; the other 

 of sticks alone lined with dry grass. The young are white when first 

 hatched. Their chief food is gophers, of which I have seen a number 

 in the nests, as well as at the foot of the tree or bank where the nest 

 was. (Spreadborough.) Breeding in large trees in timber and in 

 isolated trees along creeks in western Saskatchewan. (A. C. Bent.) 



