THE PRAIRIES 



335 



thickly populated with birds, that the erection of the most 

 inconspicuous kind of a blind aroused their suspicion and I 

 learned little more of them than is conveyed by the photo* 

 graphs of their nests with eggs and young. 



A ' ' reef ' ' north of the Narrows was so thickly covered 

 with the nests of Double-crested Cormorants, that appar- 

 ently not ii site was left unoccupied. The black, half-naked 



sat panting in 



young, with rapidly palpitating ponehe>- 



their nests, crying like puppies. Both they and their home 



were as unattractive as birds and their haunts can well 



lie. A perch, brought by an adult as food, was said by my 



boatman not to have been found in Shoal Lake, where 



pickerel abound. It had possibly been captured in Lake 



Manitoba. 



My failure to establish intimate relations with the small 

 colony of White Pelieans nesting in the lake, is related be- 



