BIEDS OF NORTHERN CANADA 377 



Mr. W. Raine's note in Professor Macoun's " Catalogue of 

 Canadian Birds " is interesting: "According to Oliver 

 Davis's ' Nests and Eggs of iST. A. Birds,' nothing has been 

 published regarding the nest and eggs of this species. It 

 therefore gives me pleasure to make the following record of 

 a set in my collection of five eggs which were taken with the 

 parent bird on May 29th, 1897, at Peel's River, which runs 

 into the mouth of the Mackenzie River. ISTest, a hole in a 

 coniferous tree about ten feet from the ground. The eggs 

 average .90 by .65. The Reverend (now Bishop) J. O. 

 Stringer secured the parent and found its crop filled with 

 seeds and worms." There are no specimens of birds or eggs 

 of this species in the Ottawa Museum ! 

 1 



402. Yellow-billed Sapsuckee — Sphyrapicus varius 



(Linn.). 

 Mr. Reid managed to secure a nest containing four fresh 

 eggs, near Eort Providence, about the middle of May, 1885. 

 It was in the cavity of a tall spruce tree. The parent was 

 shot and the specimens were later forwarded to Mr. Dalgleish. 

 An example skin was obtained at Cumberland House in 

 June, 1890, and another at Pelican Narrows the following 

 season. Major Bendire, however, states that " a set of eggs 

 taken near Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake, in June, 

 1862, by Mr. Alexander MacKenzie, is now in the United 

 States National Museum collection. Mr. R. MacFarlane 

 also found it breeding at Fort Providence, near the head 

 waters of the Mackenzie River, in the spring of 1885 (as 

 above mentioned), this being the most northern breeding 

 record Imown to me ; but there is a specimen in the collection 

 which is labelled as having been taken one hundred miles 

 north-west of Fort Simpson, which marks the most northern 

 known point of its range, where it probably also breeds. It 

 takes a week or ten days to complete the excavation in 

 a large dry or green tree for a nesting site, which is usually 

 gourd-shaped and varying from six to eighteen inches in 



