302 THE ARCTIC PRAIRIES 



and a Robin-like whistle; then I saw that it came 

 from a Northern Shrike on the bushes just ahead of us. 

 It flew off much after the manner of the Summer 

 Shrike, with flight not truly imdulatory nor yet 

 straight, but flapping half a dozen times — ^then a pause 

 and repeat. He would dive along down near the 

 ground, then up with a fine display of wings and tail 

 to the next perch selected, there to repeat with fresh 

 variations and shrieks, the same strange song, and 

 often indeed sang it on the wing, until at last he crossed 

 the river. 



Sometimes we rode in the canoe, sometimes tramped 

 along the easy shore. Once I came across a Great 

 Homed Owl in the grass by the water. He had a fish 

 over a foot long, and fiew with difficulty when he bore 

 it off. Another time I saw a Homed Owl mobbed 

 by two Wiskajons. Spmce Partridge as well as the 

 Ruffed species became common: one morning some 

 of the former marched into camp at breakfast time. 

 Rob called them "Chickens"; farther south they are 

 called "Fool Hens," which is descriptive and helps 

 to distinguish them from their neighbours — the "Sage 

 Hens." Frequently now we heard the toy-trumpeting 

 and the clack of the Pileated Woodpecker or Cock-of 

 the-Pines, a Canadian rather than a Hudsonian species. 

 One day, at our three o'clock meal, a great splendid 

 fellow of the kind gave us a thrill. "Clack-dack- 

 clMck," we heard him coming, and he bounded through 

 the air into the trees over our camp. Still uttering • 

 his loud "Clack-clack-clack," he swung from tree to 

 tree in one long festoon of flight, spread out on the up- 



