BIRDS OF XORTHEEX CAXADA 381 



calls. The males usually precede the females by a few days, 

 and as soon as the latter arrive one can hear their well-known 

 notes in all directions. The e^s of the flicker are glossy 

 white in colour, and when fresh appear as if enamelled ; the 

 shell is very close-grained and exceedingly lustrous, as if 

 polished, resembling the eggs of the ivory-billed and pileated 

 woodpeckers in this respect. They are quite variable in 

 ahape; the majority are ovate, others short and elliptical 

 ovate, and a few approach sub-pyriform, while some are 

 nearly perfect ovals. An egg is deposited daily until the set 

 is completed, and incubation lasts about fifteen days. This 

 ordinarily does not begin until the set is completed, but now 

 and then young birds and eggs in different stages of advance- 

 ment are found in the same nest. The parents are devoted 

 in the care of their young, and will frequently allow them- 

 selves to be captured on the nest. In the more northern 

 portions of their range only a single brood is raised in a 

 season — in the south possibly two. The return migration to 

 their winter homes usually begins about the latter part of 

 September, and is occasionally protracted from four to six 

 weeks later in favourable localities." 



In his " Catalogue of Canadian Birds " Professor Macoun 

 has entered this species under C. auratus luteus Bangs, 

 1898. I think he is right, but as the Major has described 

 our specimens under the old name, I retain it in the mean- 

 time. The Dominion Museum at Ottawa contains twelve 

 skins and one set of fourteen eggs, taken at Hurdman's 

 Bridge, near Ottawa. Xest found in a hole in a tree where 

 the female had nested for years. Another set of two taken 

 at Old Wives Creek, Assiniboia, May .30th, 1895. Xest in 

 a hole in Acer negundo. 



420. ISTiGHT Hawk — Chordeiles virginianus (Gmelin). 



This species has been met with as far north as Fort Good 

 Hope, Mackenzie River, where Chief Trader James Lock- 

 hart shot a bird over forty years ago. I have frequently 



