CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 339 



1880, which was built in a thorn bush in Mount Royal Park. It 

 contained younglings covered with white down. Observed from 

 May 4th to August 22nd. {Wintle.) Nest found on Duck Island 

 near Ottawa, Ont., ist July, 1897, i" ^ 1°^ bush, was composed of 

 fibrous roots and dried vegetable substances, lined with fine grass; 

 eggs four, creamy white, spotted and blotched with reddish and dark 

 brown spots. {G.R.White.) On July 21st, 1882, down by the 

 slough in a low bush, found a king-bird's nest. It was just com- 

 pleted and contained no eggs yet. The king and his wife made 

 more fuss over my intrusion than most birds would have done had 

 the nest been full of young ones. Further on I found another 

 nest of this species. It was placed on the top of a stub, about 

 eight feet high. The bird flew off. The nest was made of roots 

 and fine fibres and contained four eggs. One of them measured 

 i/^ by fi ; it was creamy white, with a few clear spots of brown 

 and lavender, inclined to form a wreath about the large end ; the 

 others were similar; all were quite fresh. {Thompson-Seton.) The 

 king-bird breeds in the low scrubby oak trees which cover the sand- 

 hill in western Manitoba, building, like the shrike, a nest consisting 

 largely of the stalks of a species of Gnaphalium. After the young 

 are able to fly they often live around the settler's houses on the 

 open prairie, but about the endof August they all leave. (Christy?) 

 Extremely numerous at Pembina, w^ere many nests were taken after 

 the middle of June, and traced westward as far as the survey 

 progressed that year. One of the nests (No. 3062) was placed on a 

 rail fence, in the crotch formed by a post. In the Missouri region, 

 it was equally abundant from Fort Buford to near the headwaters 

 of the Milk River. Many nests containing two to four eggs were 

 taken the latter part of June and early in July. One of these was 

 particularly interesting, showing that the summer warbler is not 

 the only species that gets rid of the obnoxious eggs of the cow- 

 bird by building a second story to the nest and thus leaving the 

 alien eggs to addle in the basement below. A nest taken near 

 Frenchman's River containing two eggs seemed to be a curiously 

 built affair, and on examining it closely I found the wrong egg 

 embedded in its substance below the others (No. 4185.) The 

 king-bird is not so much attached to woodland as has been sup- 

 posed. I saw great numbers whilst travelling by rail on the 

 prairies of Minnesota and Dakota, where it seemed to be as much 

 at home as anywhere. All things considered, it may be rated as 

 one of the most abundant and generally diffused species of the 



