12 
Mr. C. G. Harrold was employed as assistant zoologist for the season 
of 1928. He began work April 24 at Davidson, Saskatchewan, returning 
to Winnipeg May 9. During this time he concentrated on making a greatly 
needed collection of cranes for the National Museum of Canada. In this, 
thanks to the able assistance and hearty co-operation of Mr. Reuben 
Lloyd of Davidson, he was eminently successful and obtained a good 
series of these shy and wary birds, with full measurements, weights, sterna, 
and other details. He succeeded in establishing that the enormous flocks 
of these birds still to be seen in spring in this province, are largely if not 
entirely little brown cranes, Grus canadensis , lingering on their way to their 
breeding grounds of the far north, and are not the slightly larger resident 
sandhill cranes, Grus mexicana, of the cultivated sections. In fact none 
of the latter was secured and their future as continuing features of prairie 
life is still a matter of grave doubt. Another fact of interest brought out 
by the collection of these birds is that the red coloration of adults of either 
of these species is adventitious, caused by a deposit of iron stain, and is 
not a specific character. 
P. A. Taverner, accompanied by Mr. Harrold, who had come to Ottawa 
towards the end of May, carried on ornithological investigations at Mata- 
mek, some 8 miles east of the mouth of Moisie river, on the north shore of 
the gulf of St. Lawrence. Here they were the guests of Mr. Copley Amory 
for the best part of the summer, to whom is due many thanks for courtesies 
and assistance in the work. Most of the time was spent in studying land 
birds which have been rather neglected on this coast in the past. July 13 
to 27 was spent at Havre St. Pierre (Eskimo point) with a side trip to Gull 
bay near East cape, Anticosti island. July 27 to August 7 were spent at 
Natashkwan and July 8 to 18 at Matamek. 
The results of the season’s work were quite satisfactory, 326 birds 
and 61 mammals. A good collection of land birds was made considerably 
east of any locality on this coast so represented in our collections before, and 
a number of species were traced well beyond their previously known dis- 
tribution. The report of common cormorants breeding on the northeast 
coast of Anticosti was verified and more nests located there than were 
thought to exist in America today. Though this once common species is 
enormously reduced in number from what it was originally, its situation 
is not quite so precarious as feared. An enormous rookery of kittiwake 
gulls was located at Gull bay and the presence of a small rookery of gannets 
there verified. There are now four known breeding places for this species 
in America — Bonaventure island, Gaspe; Bird rock, Magdalen islands; 
cape St. Mary, Newfoundland; and Gull bay, Anticosti. A number of 
very interesting plumage observations were made on the water birds and 
considerable additions to our knowledge of their life histories were made. 
Some of these are the basis of a number of short papers that will shortly 
appear in the ornithological journals. Mr. Taverner also attended the 
forty-sixth annual meeting of the American Ornithologists Union at 
Charleston, S.C., November 19-22, 1928. 
H. M. Laing, of Comox, B.C., was again engaged as assistant zoologist, 
in continuation of the mammal work begun by him and C. H. Young along 
the southern boundary of British Columbia in 1927. He collected from 
May 11 to June 8 at Sterling creek (elevation 1,700 feet) on east slope of 
