340 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



298. Canada G-eouse — Canachiies canadensis (Linn.). 



This grouse breeds at Fort Providence, where a male and 

 female thereof were shot. The former was forwarded to 

 Mr. Dalgleish, and the latter to Dr. Bell, in the summer of 

 1886. Early in June, 1891, a set of five identified eggs was 

 obtained at, and sent from, Cumberland House to Wash- 

 ington. Common in the forest country at and north of Eort 

 Good Hope, Mackenzie Kiver, where they no doubt breed, 

 as well as in New Caledonia district, British Columbia. In 

 the beginning of the sixties of the last century, Chief "Trader 

 B. R. Boss, who found the species abundant at Fort Simp- 

 son, procured some eggs thereoi, which are now, according 

 to Major Bendire, in the TJ. S. National Museum. They 

 were taken as early as 23rd May. The number of eggs to 

 a set varies from nine to thirteen, rarely more, usually about 

 eleven, and in exceptional cases as many as sixteen. An 

 ^g is deposited every other day, and incubation does not 

 begin till the clutch is completed. In the Dominion Na- 

 tional Museum collection there are three specimens and but 

 one set of eggs, taken in Labrador by Mr. A. P. Low, June 

 1st, 1894! 



299. Feanklin^s Geottse — Canachites franklinii 

 (Douglas). 



In his " Life Histories of North American Birds," the 

 late Major Bendire states : " Among an extremely inter- 

 esting collection of birds' nests and eggs made by Mr. R. 

 MacFarlane, Chief Factor, Hudson's Bay Company, near 

 Stuart's Lake, B.C., during the season of 1889, and throw- 

 ing much light on the distribution of a number of species 

 found in this little known and practically unexplored terri- 

 tory, are two incomplete sets of eggs of this bird. Three eggs 

 of Franklin's grouse and one egg of the Canadian ruffed 

 grouse were found in one nest by an Indian near Lake 

 Babine post, in the latter part of May, 1889, and a second 

 nest, also containing three eggs, was brought to Mr. Mac- 



