BIEDS OF NOETHKRN CANADA 353' 



the last century. He states that this is the commonest repre- 

 sentative of the order about Rae. This species is confidently 

 believed to breed, in small numbers, however, in the V70oded 

 country lying between Fort Good Hope and the Anderson 

 River. Common in the Yukon River valley, where, no 

 doubt, Messrs. Kennicott and Lockhart obtained both skins 

 and eggs. 



Bendire states that " incubation, as with most o£ the 

 larger rap tores, lasts about four weeks. But a single brood 

 is raised in a season. The number of eggs to a set is usually 

 ■ four or five. They are pale bluish- white in colour and un- 

 spotted. An occasional specimen shows slight traces of 

 brownisk-buff markings, which are probably old bloodstains. 

 The shells of these eggs are somewhat rough to the touch, 

 deeply-pitted and granulated. They vary in shape from 

 ovate to elliptical ovate." 



The National Museum at Ottawa contains two skins and 

 two sets of eggs (two and three), one from Great Whale 

 River, Hudson Bay, and the other was taken at Fort Sas- 

 katchewan, Alberta. The former's nest was built on top of 

 a tamarac tree, of tamarac branches lined with green spruce 

 branches and a few ptarmigan feathers, and the other, of 

 sticks and twigs lined with weeds, was placed in a spruce 

 tree at a height of about fifteen feet from the ground. 



337b. Red-tailed Hawk — Buteo borealis calurus (Cassin). 



A very light-coloured specimen of this hawk was shot 

 near Stuart's Lake in the spring of 1887, and it was sent 

 to Washington in 1889. Dr. Russell obtained two specimens 

 of Buteo borealis at Grand Rapids, Cumberland, in Septem- 

 ber, 1'892, and seven more at Fort Rae in 1893. He states 

 that this bird is quite common in the latter region. Neither 

 Buteo borealis nor this sub-species appears in Mr. Ross's Bird 

 List. It builds in trees and lays from two to four eggs, which 

 are deposited at intervals of a couple of days. They greatly 

 resemble those of the red-tailed hawk, but they sometimes 



