658 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



nests were made of dried grass and built on tiie ground. I have 

 anothjr set of four eggs taken at Pasqua, western Assiniboia, 

 May 26th, 1893. The eggs of this bird are very rare in collections. 

 They are something like eggs of the prairie horned lark but are 

 smaller. Some have a pale buff ground, others greyish-white 

 ground, minutely speckled with buff and purplish grey. The 

 eggs can easily be told from small prairie horned lark's eggs by 

 the fine dark brown hair lines at the largest end of the eggs. I 

 never saw these hair lines on eggs, of the horned lark, although 

 they are often found on eggs of the American pipit and European 

 meadow pipit. This bird is called the Missouri skylark by the 

 settlers as it has the same habit as the European skylark of soar- 

 ing high up in the air until it becomes a mere speck in the sky and 

 it never ceases singing from the time it begins to ascend until it 

 reaches the earth again. It is a smaller bird than the European 

 skylark and consequently its voice is not so powerful. I have 

 often heard both species sing and must say Sprague's pipit is not 

 in it with the European skylark, in spite of what has been said to 

 the contrary by American ornithologists. (W. Raine.) 



Family LI. CINCLIDiE. Dippers. 

 CCXXXVII. CINCLUS Bechstein. 1802. 



701. American Dipper. 



Cinclus mexicanus Swains. 1827. 

 Observed one on Elbow River, southwest of Calgary, July 15th, 

 1897 ! common in Michell Creek, west of Crow's Nest Pass, 

 August 7th, 1897. (^Spr.eadborough^ I met with this bird in num- 

 bers around Chief Mountain Lake, but was too late for its eggs, 

 as the young were already on the wing. (Coues.) A very com- 

 mon species in all the mountain streams from Banff through the 

 Rocky Mountains to the Selkirks and Gold Range. Its habit of 

 living beside and behind waterfalls and small cascades adds a 

 great deal of interest to a study of its habits; one nest found in 

 the Kicking Horse River was placed on a ledge behind a small 

 waterfall and contained young birds on August 13th, 1885 ; at a 

 distance it looked like a large mass of wet moss, but on exammation 

 it proved to be a nest shaped like an oven. {Macotin.) Very common 

 in the rocky creeks west of the Columbia River on the 49th parallel 



