CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 657 



"vidual in the country. They appear to have totally disappeared. 

 This is unquestionably owing to the breaking up of the virgin 

 prairie. {Thompson- Seton.) A common summer resident at Avenue, 

 Manitoba; arrives about April 23rd and leaves about the middle 

 of September. {Norman Criddle.) Heard numerous individuals 

 singing in the east end of the Cypress Hills and saw one the last 

 week in June, 1894. Undoubtedly breeding at this time. {Spread- 

 borough.) 



Breeding Notes. — I did not see the bird in the immediate 

 vicinity of the Red River, and do not think I should have over- 

 looked it had any individuals been breeding about Pembina, 

 where I was every day in the field for more than a month collecting, 

 -very assiduously. Passing the low range of the Pembina Moun- 

 tains, however, I at once entered the prairie region, where it was 

 breeding in great numbers, in company with Baird's and the 

 chestnut-collared buntings. The first one I shot, July 14th, was a 

 tird of the year, already full grown and on wing, and as I found 

 scarcely fledged young at least a month later I judge that, like the 

 Eremaphila, the bird raises two broods a year. Travelling west- 

 ward to and beyond the second crossing of the Mouse River, no 

 day passed that I did not see numbers of the birds; and at some 

 of our camps, notably that at the first crossing of the Mouse 

 River, they were so numerous that the air seemed full of them; 

 young ones were caught by the hand in the camp, and many might 

 have been shot without stirring from my tent, as they hovered 

 overhead on tremulous wings, uttering continuously their sharp 

 querulous cry. They continued abundant through the greater 

 part of September, in which month the renewal of the plumage is 

 completed, and some still remained on the ground till October. 

 Exactly when they migrate, however, and where they go to, or 

 when they return, are equally unknown to me — not the least 

 singular point in the bird's history is the success with which it has 

 eluded observation during the winter months. {Coues.) Breeds 

 throughout Assiniboia, but rarer in Manitoba. During my several 

 expeditions to northwest Canada I have found over half a dozen 

 nests of this bird. At Crescent Lake, Assa., June 15th, 1902, I 

 found a nest containing four eggs, built in the grass on the prairie. 

 On May 25th, 1901, a set of five eggs was collected for me by Mr.* 

 Hugh Richardson in the Qu'Appelle valley, Assiniboia, and he 

 -took another set of five eggs on May 28th at the same place, both 



