66 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



COLLECTING AT SHOAL LAKE, MANITOBA. 

 By W. Kaine. 



Shoal Lake contains several islands, on one of which a 

 colony of White Pelicans formerly nested in great numbers. 

 Mr. E. Hunter on June 1st, 1878, counted six hundred eggs 

 on a small island of about half an acre in extent,* but since 

 that time their numbers have considerably diminished. 



The second week in June, 1891, Mr. Edward Arnold, 

 myself and two assistants spent five days collecting at Shoal 

 Lake, and although we visited several islands we did not 

 fall in with the colony of White Pelicans. As Mr. Arnold's 

 time was limited we returned to Reaburn, and he went west- 

 ward to Qu'Appelle while I went north to Lake Manitoba. 

 After spending a week collecting at Long Lake and Lake 

 Manitoba, I made up my mind to return to Shoal Lake, as it 

 had proved to be a splendid collecting ground, for we had taken 

 a fine series of eggs of American Bittern, Holbcells, Horned 

 and eared Grebes, Forster's Tern, Double-crested Cormorant 

 and several species of Duck's eggs. 



So on June 17th I hired a young farmer and his buckboard, 

 and taking my canvas boat, gun, camera, and provisions for 

 three days, we drove twenty-eight miles northward, reaching 

 Woodlands in the evening, and put up at the farm house for 

 the night, and next morning we arose early and proceeded 

 three miles further, when the lake appeared glistening in the 

 morning sun. We drove to a point on the east side of the lake 

 near which we had been camped on our previous visit. Off 

 this peninsula is a rocky island, separated from the point by a 

 shallow channel of water. We waded across to the island and 

 found that the great wind storm of June 12th had caused the 

 water to wash over a portion of the island, destroying hundreds 

 of eggs of the Terns which Mr. Arnold and myself had found 

 nesting in vast numbers on our visit ten days previously. The 

 colony of Ring-billed Gulls had also forsaken their nests owing 

 to the waves having played sad havoc with their nests and 

 eggs, and broken eggs of Terns, Gulls and Ducks were scat- 



* Thomson's Birds of Manitoba. 



