97.★ =Empidonax minimus.= LEAST FLYCATCHER.—Common all along the river. Specimens taken at Camps 3, 3½, 5 and 11.
98.★ =Otocoris alpestris.= HORNED LARK.—We saw no Horned Larks until Camp 11 on the Little Sandhill Creek was reached, where Young reports that he found them common on the flats of the north side of the river feeding on wild buckwheat. Fourteen specimens were taken between July 26 and September 20. These are all _leucolœma_ as recognized by the A. O. U. or _enthemia_ according to Oberholser and Ridgway.
99.★ =Pica pica.= MAGPIE.—One of the pleasures of the trip was acquaintanceship with this bird. We heard of occasional Magpies being seen about Camp 1, but did not meet with them personally until between Camp 5 and 6 when we found a family party of partially fledged birds discussing the world and things in general in the Saskatoon bushes. “Chattering like a Magpie” hardly gives a clear idea of the performances. They keep it up continually in season and out, but the talk is deliberate rather than “chattering.” They are never still for a minute and their curiosity is insatiable. Every morning our camp was the center of interest and conversation to a group of these long-tailed clowns, uniting the gravity of judges with the talkativeness of a debating society. At Camp 11 a nearby creek bed cut down some twelve feet below the general level and dry and parched in the sun was the repository of our empty cans and table scraps. Magpies were always in attendance and no sooner had the falling can ceased its noisy rattling and come to rest than a “Pie” was on hand to glean what it might from its depths. They seemed to go in small companies, probably original families though perhaps in some cases more than one brood had joined together and haunted the brush in the wooded river edges or the low dense tangle on hill tops sailing from clump to clump and furtively following one another from cover to cover. Their nests were conspicuous objects in the heavier bush. Great oval masses of sticks four or five feet high and two or three feet through with the nest in the center reached by openings in opposite sides for ingress and egress. The fact that we invariably found them in the neighborhood or not more than a hundred yards or so from nests of Red-tail or Swainson’s Hawks may or may not have a meaning; nor is it clear, if it is more than accidental, which—the “Pie” or the hawk—was first to choose the locality. Specimens were obtained at Camps 5½ and 11 while we have others from Rumsey and Morrin collected by Geo. Sternberg.