Amongst the birds noteworthy in the landscape are the
white-headed sea eagles and Californian condors (_Pseudogryphus
californianus_). Humming-birds range through British Columbia and
Vancouver Island between mid-April and October.
In the regions about the upper Kootenay River (Eastern British
Columbia), before the railway was constructed, there were wild horses,
descended, no doubt, from those which had escaped from the Spaniards
in New Mexico and California. They went in large herds, and in the
winter when the snow was deep the natives would try to catch them by
running them down with relays of fresh horses, or driving them up the
mountains into the deepest snow or some narrow pass. A noose would
then be thrown about the exhausted animal, which would be instantly
mounted by an Indian and broken immediately to the saddle. Some of
these wild horses were exceedingly swift, well-proportioned, and
handsome in shape, but they seldom proved as docile as those born in
captivity. When in a wild condition they would snort so loudly through
the nostrils on descrying an enemy that they could be heard at a
distance of five hundred yards.
The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba--the MIDDLE
WEST--represent mainly the great prairie region of the Canadian
Dominion. Nearly all the streams here flow from the eastern side of
the Rocky Mountains and direct their course to the basin of Lake
Winnipeg and to Hudson's Bay.
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