90 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



from Indian Head northwesterly to Fort Yukon in Alaska. The 

 country northwest of Edmonton suits it well, as there are many 

 marshes full of Scirpus lacustris and tall grasses, among which it 

 likes to breed. 



Breeding Notes. — Fairly common at Reaburn, in Manitoba, 

 and at Buffalo Lake, Alberta. In both places eggs and birds were 

 procured. {Dippie.) Nests are always in the reeds growing in 

 the water ; they are very bulky, and made of grass and reeds 

 lined with down. A nest of this species was found on a musk- 

 rat house in a marsh at Crane Lake, June 15th, 1894- It contained 

 seven eggs. {Spreadborough.) I have found this species breeding 

 at Long Lake and Shoal Lake in Manitoba, and at Crane Lake 

 in Assiniboia. It breeds also throughout Alberta. The only 

 other species of ducks' eggs they can be compared with are 

 the American and Barrow's Golden-eye, which they greatly 

 resemble, both in regard to size and tint. The Canvas-back is a 

 late breeder, nesting toward the latter part of June. I found a 

 nest containing seven eggs at Long Lake, Manitoba, June 29th, 

 1893. The nest was built, as usual, in the centre of a tuft of rushes 

 in shallow water, as this duck seldom nests in the grass like the 

 Pintail, Shoveller, and Teal. (Jicdne!) 



Scaups, Canvas-backs and Red-heads undoubtedly breed in the 

 same marshes, and with them the Ruddy Duck. Iri the marshes 

 at Crane Lake, between June 12th and 20th, the writer found nests 

 of all four species, with eggs of one or two other species in them. 

 The bulky nest mentioned under the Greater Scaup was likely 

 built by a Canvas-back, but the larger number of the eggs were 

 those of a Scaup. 



museum specimens. 



Three specimens. One female and two males. One was shot 

 in Toronto marsh ; one at Edmonton, Alberta, and the other in 

 Victoria Harbour, Vancouver Island, the last two by Spread- 

 borough. 



Three sets of eggs, taken at Edmonton, Alberta, in the spring 

 of 1897. 



148. American Scaup Duck. Big Black-head. 



Aythya marila (Linn.) Boie. 1822. 



A very rare straggler in Newfoundland ; rare migrant in Nova 

 Scotia, and occasionally taken in New Brunswick. Spreadborough 



