Oct. 16, toward Winnipeg In Manitoba: Brandon, at 4 p.m. I guess we're crossed the 100th Meridian; there is more evidence of moisture. Here is quite a river valley, tho as yet I've seen no flowing stream. There are prairie ponds, and the "prairie" is more cut up by tracts of stunted trees and brush - "muskegs" maybe they are. The station grounds here have chattering throngs of English Sparrows. Back a ways, in ploughed ground or stubble, I saw at least 3 throngs of what looked like Horned Larks. Gopher (?) workings seen. Out of Brandon a few minutes, saw in flight, a Marsh Hawk and a Bittern; the latter flushed from a roadside pond where there were dead rushes. All vegetation is brown and dead-looking; the trees all leafless. Prairie grass on cultivated ground, strikingly tall and thick. At 4:50, all of a sudden, there came in some kind of spruce in scattering formation with sandy oak-like trees in the little ridges, and "muskegs" in the low places. The topography is uneven - draining and kettle-holes - very little of it cultivated. Oct. 17 10 a.m. - Into Ontario in the night; now at Winnipeg, at head of a northern arm