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ALASKAN BIRD-LIFE

AS

Depicted by Many Writers

Edited by
ERNEST INGERSOLL

Published by the

National Association of Audubon Societies

New York, 1914

THE RED CROSSBILL

ALASKAN BIRD LIFE

AS

Depicted by Many Writers

Edited by
ERNEST INGERSOLL

Seven Plates in Colors and Other Illustrations.

Published by the

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES

NEW YORK, 1914

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NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
AUDUBON SOCIETIES

(FOUNDED 1901. INCORPORATED 1905)

For the Protection of Wild Birds
and Animals

OFFICERS

WILLIAM BUTCHER, PRESIDENT
FREDERIC A. LUCAS, ACTING PRESIDENT
THEODORE S. PALMER, IST VICE-PRESIDENT
T. GILBERT PEARSON, SECRETARY
JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., TREASURER
SAMUEL T. CARTER, JR., ATTORNEY

DIRECTORS

WILLIAM DUTCHER W. W. GRANT

THEODORE S. PALMER GEORGE B. GRINNELL,

FREDERIC A. Lue*g - * '/'M/fBEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

T. GILBERT EEARSON r r r , r r r FRAPP M. CHAPMAN

JONATHAN D WIGHT*, ' JR. : JV A.*4 ALLEN
CHARLES SHELDON

OFFICES

1974 Broadway, New York City

INTRODUCTION

THIS volume on Alaskan Bird-Life has been prepared
for free distribution among the people of Alaska.
This has been done in pursuance of the established
policy of this Association to seek, by all available measures,
to cultivate on the part of the general American public a
better appreciation of the value to mankind of our wild
birds and animals.

In offering this account of bird-life in Alaska, we
have attempted to furnish a general sketch of the subject,
rather than a scientific treatise. The greatest care has been
taken as to accuracy. All of the writers whose contrib-
utions are here combined, and given a certain uniformity,
are men of recognized authority in their subject. The
purpose primarily in view, however, is educational; to give
those who have an interest in the animal life of their
country additional knowledge, and to attract to the subject
the attention of those who, largely from lack of inform-
ation, have neglected what others have found to be a most
delightful study.

The mere enjoyment derived from knowing the birds,
recognizing them by name, and observing the varying
characteristics and habits of the different local groups and
species, offers a satisfactory inducement for study, and is an
adequate reward, increasing as knowledge progresses. This
alone might well be a sufficient reason for publishing and
distributing a book of this kind. The Association and the
Government have had, however, an additional, and perhaps an
even higher purpose in view, namely, to teach the people of
Alaska, and especially the boys and girls there, to under-
stand and appreciate the very important place which the
birds of this country — or of any country — occupy in the
list of national assets.

To impress this truth on the minds of the American
people, to teach those who are ignorant and encourage
those who are wise, and to form and enforce legislation

tending to the conservation of this valuable part of the
nation's wealth, is the mission of the Audubon Societies.
It is with that purpose in view that this and other public-
ations of the National Association are issued, and that its
extensive work in the schools of the country is carried on.

It is greatly to be hoped, therefore, that all of the
teachers in Alaska into whose hands this volume may fall will
give serious attention to it, and make use of its contents in
their school-work. Examination will show that careful
attention has been paid by the editor to the diction, fore-
seeing that the book was likely to be used in reading-classes,
as a source of material for exercises in English composition,
and in other ways ; therefore a good literary style was desirable.

Accompanying the colored plates, which have been made
by capable artists with critical care for accuracy, are outlines
of the figures, which a child may color with his paint-brush
or crayons, either from a living bird, or from the portrait-
plate. No better way has been devised of fixing the colors of
a bird in the mind than this; and in many schools the
coloring of these outlines takes the place of the ordinary
exercise in drawing.

In gathering material for the book it was found expedient
to conduct some original field-work, and therefore the
Association, cooperating with the Government, maintained a
naturalist, Mr. George Willett, at the St. Lazaria Bird Reser-
vation during the summer of 1912, to study and report upon
the wild-bird life of that vicinity.

In 1913 a similar work was carried on at the Forrester
Island Government Bird Reservation by Dr. Harold Heath.

The expense of this field-work, as well as the cost of
publishing this book, was borne by a member of this Assoc-
iation, whose generosity has made it possible to accomplish
many useful undertakings along similar lines.

T. GILBERT PEARSON,

Secretary.

APPROVAL BY THE UNITED STATES
BUREAU OF EDUCATION

In area Alaska is equal to New England, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the
two Dakotas. A map of Alaska, imposed upon a map of the United
States drawn to the same scale, would extend from Charleston, South
Carolina, to San Francisco. The coast-line of Alaska is longer by
many thousands of miles than the distance around the world at the
equator. The climate of Alaska varies from the soft, even climate of
southeastern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, similar to that of the
coast of Oregon and Washington, to the uneven climate of the in-
terior and of the Northwest, with its annual swing of more than 160
degrees.

We have heard much of Alaska within the last two decades — of
its mountains, rivers, and plains ; its seas, and islands, and glaciers ;
its forests and tundras ; its fishing-waters and hunting-grounds ; its
gold and copper — but we know little about its abundant and varied
bird-life; and the people of Alaska, particularly the white people,
seem to know not much more. How varied this life is we might guess
from the size, location, physical features, and climatic conditions of
the country. A brief visit at the proper season of the year gives some
idea as to its abundance.

For the natives who have learned to read English, for the white
settlers, for the numerous visitors, and for thousands interested in
Alaska and all parts of the world, there has been need of such a brief,
accurate, and readable account of the important forms of bird-life
in the various parts of this great peninsula as that presented in this
book, prepared under the direction of the National Association of
Audubon Societies. That the people of Alaska may have an oppor-
tunity to inform themselves on this subject, and to deal with it in-
telligently, this Association has placed in the hands of the Commis-
sioner of Education of the United States eight thousand copies of this
book for distribution in Alaska. Every copy should bring- some one a
fuller appreciation of the beauty, the wealth, and the greatness of this
country.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

APPROVAL BY COMMISSIONER P. P. CLAXTON 5

SOUTH-COAST DISTRICT , 9

South-coast water-birds, 10; larger land-birds, 13; sparrows and small
birds, 15.

WOODED INTERIOR DISTRICT 16

Shore-birds and game-birds, 17; falcons, eagles and owls, 18; woodland
species, 20; finches and small songsters, 22.

ARCTIC COASTAL DISTRICT 26

Asiatic visitors, 27; braving an arctic winter, 28; bird-life of the Sea
Islands, 32 ; bird-year at St. Michaels, 34 ; spring and summer on the
tundras, 37; notes by the editor, 43.

ALEUTIAN DISTRICT 45

Land-birds of the Aleutian chain, 47.

THE TUFTED PUFFIN 49

THE CRESTED AUKLET 53

THE EMPEROR GOOSE 57

THE HUDSONIAN CURLEW 62

THE WILLOW PTARMIGAN 64

THE ALASKAN LONGSPUR . 68

COLORED PLATES

CROSSBILLS Frontispiece

ALASKAN LONGSPUR 17

WILLOW PTARMIGAN 31

HUDSONIAN CURLEW 41

TUFTED PUFFIN 49

CRESTED AUKLET 55

EMPEROR GOOSE 59

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

BREEDING COLONY OF CALIFORNIA MURRES 8

MAP OF FAUNAL DISTRICTS IN ALASKA 9

PALLAS' s MURRES ON BOGOSLOF ISLAND > 32

PACIFIC KITTIWAKES ON WALRUS ISLAND 38

CORMORANTS ON WALRUS ISLAND 46

AUKLETS ON PRIBILOF ISLANDS . 54

ALASKAN BIRD -LIFE

General Characteristics

%

The bird-population of Alaska is large, varied, and interesting,
despite the remote and northern situation of the country. This is
possible because it has a warm and moist summer, although a short
one, favoring the rapid and copious growth of vegetation, including
extensive forests; and because the adjoining seas abound in food
naturally attractive to many kinds of birds.

Any map of Alaska showing average weather conditions makes
plain the fact that the lines (isotherms) which connect places in North
America having the same average summer warmth swing up in the
west far toward the north, proving — what is plain to all who live there
—that a climate as mild in midsummer as that of the Great Lakes
region prevails much farther toward the north on the Pacific than
on the Atlantic slope of the continent.

The amount and character of the bird-population in any region
depend greatly on its having a climate favorable to birds at the season
when they are hatching and rearing their nestlings, not only because
most birds are creatures of mild rather than rough conditions, but
because a warm and moist climate furnishes far more food, both ani-
mal and vegetable, than does a cold or an arid one. The fact that
a temperate summer climate extends as far northwest as central Alaska
therefore allows the land-birds to spread their area of summer resi-
dence much farther in that direction than they are able to do on the
bleak northeastern side of the continent. For this reason Alaska has
many kinds of birds well known in the United States.

Another reason why Alaska has a large bird-population is found
in the fact that the Pacific Coast and the long trough between the
Rocky Mountains and the Sierras and northern coast ranges form
natural and unobstructed pathways for the migratory birds of the west
as they annually travel northward in spring and back again in autumn.
Another convenient and natural approach for migratory birds is from
western Canada down the upper Yukon Valley ; and probably most of
the small birds of the interior go and come by this river-valley
route. When to this mingled company is added the group of birds —
principally sea-fowl — that reside in the Territory all the year round
it is manifest that the bird-population of Alaska is not only extensive,
but is more representative of the whole of North America than that
of any other part of the continent.

Faunal Districts in Alaska

If Alaska were a great plain it would have a substantially uniform
climate, gradually colder from south to north. However, the country
is embroidered with ranges of lofty mountains, which divide it into
several regions, each distinct in climate, and consequently distinct in
plant and animal. Four of these districts may be marked off as below :
and it is important to keep them in mind if one wishes to form a
clear idea of Alaskan ornithology, for each has its own characteristic
bird-life.

A. THE SOUTH-COAST DISTRICT.

B. THE WOODED-INTERIOR DISTRICT.

C. THE ARCTIC-COAST DISTRICT.

D. THE ALEUTIAN DISTRICT.

These districts might be reviewed in any order; but that of the
islands and shore of the southern coast has been placed first because
it is the best known, the most easily accessible, and the most populous
part of Alaska.

A BREEDING COLONY OF CALIFORNIA MURRES
From a Photograph by A. C. Bent

8

SOUTH-COAST DISTRICT (A)

The southern border of Alaska consists of a ragged strip of coast
indented by deep, fiord-like bays and by narrow channels that so
intersect as to cut off hundreds of islands. At varying distances,
but never far from the ocean, stand lofty mountains capped with
snow-fields and glaciers, protecting the coastal valleys and islands
from the cold north and northeast winds. The Coast Range continues
northward from British Columbia as far as Icy Strait and Lynn
Canal, beyond which the massive uplift of the St. Elias Alps presents

Sketch -Map of Alaska, Showing Areas of Faunal Districts (see page 8),
and the Situations of Federal Bird Reservations (see page 72)

hardly more than ice-cliffs to the sea until the mouth of Copper River
is reached. Thence westward a marginal coast of considerable width,
cut by many rivers and inlets, fringed with peninsulas and islands,
and walled by mountains, extends to the base of the Alaska Peninsula.
This long coastal belt receives from the prevailing westerly
winds the warmth and moisture of the Pacific Ocean, shed upon it
copiously by the chilling effect of the mountains, against which the
clouds incessantly drift. Hence all this district, except the glacial

headlands of the St. Elias Range, is covered with forests, valley-
swamps and mountain-meadows, which reach far higher on the sea-
ward front than on the interior slopes of the ranges. The woods are
mainly of evergreen trees, and toward the south they grow to an
astonishing height; but in the more open places are to be found many
kinds of deciduous trees, berry-bearing shrubs, and a rich flora of
flowering plants and mosses. The country is frequented by mammals
in large variety, from bears to mice, and the rivers and inlets abound
in fish. Considering this warm and humid climate, often really hot
in summer, and the plenitude of food, it is not surprising to learn
that birds are numerous here, embracing, in fact, if migrants are
included, nearly the whole avifauna of Alaska.

The warmly moist climate of this coast has the effect of intensi-
fying and making darker the colors of the fur of mammals and the
plumage of the birds and butterflies that spend their summers there.
"Pale browns," Nelson observes, "become rich rufous, or rusty red,
and grays become dark brown, with corresponding changes in other
colors." Hence a large number of the birds of this district are distin-
guished by varietal names.

South-Coast Water-Birds

Beginning, as is customary, at the foot of the scale of organiza-
tion, the first birds to be mentioned are the grebes, of which two
species may be met with in this district — the red-necked and the
horned. Grebes, or divers, are water-birds with the general appear-
ance of ducks, but their bills are small and narrow, and their feet,
instead of being fully webbed, have the toes flattened and broadened
into paddles. The legs are set so far back that it is difficult for grebes
to walk upon land, but they are among the most expert of swimmers
and divers, and often, when trying to avoid observation, will quietly
submerge the whole body, leaving only the inconspicuous head out
of water. They feed chiefly on fish and small aquatic creatures, but
also nibble at succulent plants. Their nests are mere rafts of reed-
stalks, usually afloat among the rushes of some inland pond, and the
few greenish-white eggs lie in a sodden bed.

Loons are near relatives of the grebes, but are larger, and more
strongly marked in dark colors checkered with white ; they feed on
fish and lay two eggs in a slight hollow on the bank of a river or lake.
Three species come here: the common great northern diver, the red-
throated diver, and the Pacific loon.

10

The cliffs and ragged islands of this southern coast of Alaska
harbor many members of those quaint tribes of small sea-birds, the
puffins, murres, and others of the auk family, which, however, are
better represented on the northern coasts, and are described hereafter
by Mr. Nelson and Mr. Bent. Among those breeding in crowded
colonies south of the Aleutian islands are the tufted puffin (see page
49), the rhinoceros, Cassin's, and the crested auklets, the marbled,
ancient, and Kittlitz's murrelets, and the Californian and the black
guillemots. The pigeon, paroquet, and least auklets appear only as
migrants in winter.

George Willett notes that the burrows of the rhinoceros auklets,
birds found by him to be common about Sitka Sound, and nesting
in a numerous colony on St. Lazaria Island in company with many
tufted puffins, are entirely different in situation and construction
from those of any other of the birds dwelling there. Their burrows
are much larger than those of the petrels, and longer than those
of the puffins, from which they differ also in situation. St. Lazaria
Island is a Federal bird-reservation, and the auklet colony "is well up
toward the top of the island among the timber, and the burrows fre-
quently run under logs and among the roots of trees."

Gulls are numerous, as might be expected along such a coast, but
no tern is known east of Kadiak Island, and even there the arctic
tern alone represents this fine group of diminutive gulls. Those
powerful sea-hawks, the jaegers — both the parasitic and the long-tailed
— visit this coast in winter, but keep well out at sea, harassing every
bird that fishes. Winter gulls, whose summer home is in the north,
are the rare ivory gull, the glaucous gull or burgomaster, and Sabine's
or the fork-tailed gull. Resident here in summer, nesting on both
sandy islets and rock-ledges, are the glaucous-winged gull, the big,
world-wandering herring gull, with its snowy head and black wing-
tips, the short-billed, and the familiar black-headed, white-tailed,
Bonaparte's gull.

Gulls' nests are very simple structures — sometimes nothing at
all — and large colonies often breed together both on the sea shore
and on the beaches of inland lakes. Their eggs are blotched and
marbled with various tints, from lavender to deep red-brown.

Other oceanic birds, seen by voyagers, but rarely near shore,
are the shooty shearwater, Fisher's, the fork-tailed, and Leach's pe-
ll

trels — adventurous northern representatives of several great tropical
families. The last two reside in extensive breeding-companies on the
heights of St. Lazaria, where their young are hatched beneath the
grass-roots in midsummer.

With a mention of the white-breasted and the violet-green cor-
morants, that breed in large numbers on the westernmost islands, we
come to the end of the list of sea-birds, and turn to that of the fresh-
water species. Many sea-birds, which used to nest numerously near
Sitka, now are rare there, owing mainly, it is believed, to the de-
struction of their eggs or young by crows and ravens.

Ducks are not so numerous in this district as in the interior or
on the tundras. Of the mergansers, the only one regularly seen is
the red-breasted, the other being scarce. Mallards, green-winged
teals, Barrow's golden-eyes (whistlewings), the scaups, harlequins,
buffleheads (butter-balls), and the scoters, appear to be the only
ducks nesting at all frequently near the coast; and few except the
pintail, scaup, old-squaw, scoters, and eiders, occur in winter. The
white-winged scoter is the most abundant of the surf-ducks, and is
numerous on salt water all through the year.

The same may be said of the geese, the white-fronted and the
white-cheeked alone nesting on the southern coast, while the snow-
goose, Hutchins's, and the cackling goose, the brant and some others,
are occasionally seen in migrations or during the winter. The climate
and other conditions are too unfavorable to induce or permit such
wading-birds as herons, bitterns, rails, and gallinules, to dwell in any
part of Alaska, except that the Pacific-coast variety of the great blue
heron visits the southern part of the Territory.

The situation is a little better for the shore-birds, which can
pick up food along the margins of sheltered bays, especially west of
the Copper River; but such of these as are seen in the course of a
year are principally autumnal migrants. Only Wilson's snipe, the
Aleutian, Pribilof, and least sandpipers, the greater yellowlegs, and
the wandering tattler, halt to rear their young south of the Yukon
Valley. Nests of the black oyster-catchers, however, have been dis-
covered near Prince William Sound. The northern phalarope is com-
mon on salt water at all seasons.

12

The Larger Land-Birds.

The only game-bird of the region is the white-tailed ptarmigan,
and its dwelling-place is far up the slopes of the mountains. Neither
partridge nor pigeon has been noted, except one record of a mourning
dove.

Birds of prey, however, find plentiful means of living, and abound
throughout the coastal district. The almost cosmopolitan marsh
hawk shows itself occasionally, and probably rears its young among
the reeds margining one or another of the many lakelets. The sharp-
shinned hawk is there, and will be likely to increase as civilization
extends its conquest to the wilderness. The western goshawk and
the roughleg are to be found, both nesting in tall trees. The western
redtail is seen occasionally in the south, usually hunting for mice
about timber-line on the mountains. The bald eagle, according to
Willett, is the most common raptorial bird of the coast south of St.
Elias; it is also conspicuously present elsewhere in Alaska. Mr.
Willett offers the following interesting note upon it at Sitka :

The nest is always placed near salt water, all those noted being in tall
coniferous trees. The birds seen in the high mountains during the summer
were nearly all immature. The young leave the nest late in August. Accord-
ing to James Brightman, the eggs are deposited in late April and early May.
During the early summer these birds apparently subsist to a considerable
extent on fawns. Several dead eagles examined at this season were gorged
with fawn-meat, and the claws were covered with hair. The hunters of the
region claim that the eagle is the worst enemy the deer have, and kill them
at every opportunity. In the early fall, when the salmon are running up
the streams to spawn, these birds feed largely on fish, and they may be seen
in numbers around every salmon-stream. A nest examined in St. Lazaria
Island in August, 1912, contained the remains of a great number of tufted
puffins and young glaucous-winged gulls.

The golden eagle also frequents the sea-fronting cliffs, but is
more familiar westward; also both forms of the duck hawk. The
pigeon hawk (of the "black" variety) and the fish hawk complete
the summer list, but both are rare.

Of the owls, the short-eared finds excellent nesting-places in the
thick woods, where also Kennicott's screech-owl is heard, but neither
is common. Of the large owls, two are resident — the dusky variety
of the great horned owl and the gray owl. Both the snowy and
the hawk owls are to be found in winter among the mountains.

13

The kingfisher flourishes in a region where streams and fishes
are so plentiful ; and of woodpeckers local varieties of the downy, the
hairy, and the three-toed, a sapsucker, and the northwestern flicker,
are to be noted. There is also a hummingbird (see page 20), and
Vaux's swift ; but the latter is rare.

Next comes the great order of Perching Birds. Three flycatchers
have been listed, but the western pewee alone is numerous. The
magpie is seen irregularly, and seems to be less common than for-
merly. Steller's jay is a numerous resident, his gaudy plumage flash-
ing before the eyes of the travelers along all the shores, and in clear-
ings and villages. Crows are common, near the coast and on the
islands, robbing the nests of the sea-birds as long as any eggs or
young are to be obtained; and at other seasons, as Willett tells
us, "they gather in large flocks along the beaches at low tide, feeding
on shell-fish and crustaceans, and when the tide is in scratching
among the drift-kelp along the shore." The fish crow has similar
habits, and may be seen in throngs, sometimes, about the fishing-
stages and canneries, feeding upon offal. Still more conspicuous and
generally distributed is the raven, of which Mr. Willett gives us a
graphic picture :

. . . plentiful in the streets of Sitka, and on the near-by beaches, feeding
on refuse and carrion. They were also noted on the tops of the mountain
ranges, where they were frequently seen playing on the snow-banks and
glaciers. They would dig holes in the snow, and, lying down In them, would
scratch the snow over their backs with bill and wings, the coolness secured
in this way evidently affording them great enjoyment. They frequently
follow the eagles when the latter are hunting, probably in hopes of securing
a share of the prey. On one occasion I had killed a deer and left it for a
couple of hours. On my return the eyes and a part of the intestines had been
picked out by the ravens. . . . The raven is very fond of clams, abalones,
sea-urchins, and other shell-fish, which are secured from the rocks at low
tide. The shells are frequently found high up on the hillsides, where they
have been carried by the ravens. On one occasion Merrill watched a number
of birds standing around a hog that was digging clams from the mud. As
fast as the clams were brought to the surface they were appropriated by
the ravens.

The handsomely marked form of the nutcracker may well reward
the keen-eyed observer, but thus far it has been seen, or at least has
been recorded, only once inside the bounds of Alaska. The only
blackbird is the wide-ranging rusty grackle, and that is uncommon.
No other grackles, orioles, meadowlarks, or bobolinks make music in
that region of dense forests and rainy skies.

14

Sparrows and Other Small Birds

The finch tribe is well fitted to such surroundings, and is largely
represented in southern Alaska. The pine grosbeak is plentiful, espe-
cially in autumn, the Kadiak race of this species breeding along the
coast from the base of the Alaska Peninsula eastward as far, at least,
as Glacier Bay, making its nest in spruce trees. Crossbills are seen
irregularly, but no doubt breed. Rosy finches make their home on
the higher mountain-slopes, and redpolls rear their young in the
higher woods.

Along the coast, in open, grassy places, are to be seen and heard
in summer the western savanna sparrow, Gambel's whitethroat, its
cousin, the golden-crowned, and the western tree-sparrow. Of the
snow-birds (Junco), both the typical and the Oregon forms are to
be found, nesting on brushy hillsides at the roots of bushes ; while
several subspecies of the highly variable song sparrow are present,
but much scattered in distribution. The rusty song sparrow occurs
only at the extreme southern extremity of the Territory; the sooty
variety is numerous only as far north as Glacier Bay ; the Yakutat
song sparrow belongs to the chilly front of the Mt. Fairweather
range, the Kenai to the Kenai Peninsula; the Kadiak to the island of
that name and the neighboring mainland, and the Aleutian variety
to the Alaska Peninsula and certain of the Aleutian Islands.

Forbush's sparrow, a variety of Lincoln's, and two races of fox
sparrows, are scattered in favorable brushy or grassy places all along
the coast to the Alaska Peninsula. One of the fox sparrows (Town-
send's) is a brilliant singer.

The barn swallow (a few of which still place their nests on the
cliffs of the outlying islands) gladdens the villagers along the coast
for a few weeks in midsummer; and tree swallows nest in old wood-
pecker-holes in the dead stubs in the woods, coming down to the shore
after their young are able to fly, and soon drifting southward.

Few warblers, of course, appear upon the list of this .part of the
country. The lutescent variety of the orange-crown, the Alaska
yellow warbler, Townsend's warbler, and the pileolated variety of
the blackcap, are all so far noted. The dipper is to be found on
almost every stream.

The large family of wrens and thrashers is represented only by
the winter wren in its western variety; but a separate race inhabits
Kadiak Island. Brown creepers are fairly common along streams,
and there are two chickadees — the long-tailed and the chestnut-

15

backed — and two kinglets. As to the kinglets Grinnell makes some
interesting observations; he found the golden-crowned common
everywhere about Sitka, especially in the dense fir thickets along the
streams. He says :

On June 22, as I was carefully picking my way through a clump of firs,
I chanced upon six of these mites of birds sitting in a row close together
on a twig; but when one of the parents appeared and discovered me, her
single sharp note scattered them in all directions with a chorus of squeaks,
and then in a moment all was quiet and not one to be seen, although all were
probably watching me intently within a radius of ten feet.

Of the thrush family this coastal region has the russet-backed
and the Alaska hermit. The western variety of the robin is present in
large numbers, and with the familiar disposition he shows in the East ;
also the Oregon, or varied, robin — the last of the list of those birds
known or believed to rear their young on the seaward side of the
mountains.

WOODED-INTERIOR DISTRICT (B)

The principal sources of information upon the birds of the in-
terior of Alaska are the Report by Edward W. Nelson, hitherto
quoted, and the account by Dr. Louis B. Bishop, in North American
Fauna, No. 19, of a "biological reconnoissance of Alaska" made in the
summer of 1889. Dr. Bishop states that about a third of the birds
noted by him had their center of distribution in the east, and mi-
grated to Alaska along the Yukon Valley.

The account of the birds of this district, which embraces the for-
ested part of the Territory north of the Alaskan Mountains, begins,
as usual, at the lower end of the scale in classification, so that — as sea-
birds are absent — the first to be mentioned are the fresh-water ducks.
The American and red-breasted mergansers, the mallard, shoveler,
baldpate, pintail, scaup, American goldeneye or whistlewing, burfle-
head, old-squaw, harlequin, both of the teals, and the surf-scoter, all
occur, breeding in suitable places ; but the green-winged teal and the
pintail are by far the most widely distributed and most often en-
countered. The breeding-habits of several of them, typical of all,
have been described by Mr. Nelson (pages 40, 41) as he learned them
on the coastal tundras.

Of the geese, while all species are seen during their migrations,
the brown, or Hutchins's goose, is most numerous in summer in
the interior, where they are said to resort to the hilltops for nesting-
sites. Dall reports the white-fronted goose, however, breeding gre-
gariously all along the Yukon, depositing their eggs in hollows

16

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scooped out of the sand. The Canada goose is there, too, but is rare.
The cackling goose also abounds along the larger rivers and lakes.
The whistling swan nests all over the interior, where the trumpeter
also is occasionally met.

Shore-birds and Game-birds

The climate and character of the country are unfavorable for the
large waders, and the only representative of the group in this district
is the little brown or sandhill crane, which seems to be more common
in the valley of the Porcupine River than anywhere else.

Of the small waders, however, many species are to be enumerated.
The red phalarope nests in the marshes of the interior, as on the coast,
and Wilson's, miscalled the English snipe, and the long-billed do-
witcher (more common and widely distributed) along the Yukon near
the international boundary; but other small waders are rare there ex-
cept the familiar spotted sandpiper, or tip-up. "Hardly a day
passed," Bishop notes, "without our seeing many along the shore
[of the Yukon], or skimming over the river. The least, and the
semipalmated, and the western sandpipers are present in the breed-
ing-season, but are usually rare. Whether the Hudsonian godwit and
the pectoral sandpiper breed inland seems doubtful. The solitary
sandpiper, lesser yellowlegs, wandering tattler and upland plover are
also recorded as breeders, but probably nowhere in abundance.

Plovers are more fitted to the inland conditions, and most of the
northern species make their home along the Yukon — among them
the golden, the black-bellied and the semipalmated, but the last is the
one most commonly obtained by sportsmen. The surf-bird also is
credited with a place in this district.

Turning to the grouse, both varieties of the Canada or spruce
grouse, or fool-hen, resort in summer to breeding-places all over the
interior of the Territory, and are resident, as a rule, wherever found.
"At Anvik on the lower Yukon," according to Nelson, "it is rather
common, and inhabits the mixed forests of spruce and deciduous trees,
whence it has the habit of coming out on the gravelly river-bank,
early in the morning, during pleasant weather in spring and sum-
mer." Closely associated with it in extent and station is the gray
variety of the ruffed grouse.

The willow ptarmigan is also widely distributed as a resident
throughout the year, but most commonly toward the northern part of
the forested region. "In autumn," to quote Nelson again, "they unite
in great flocks and migrate south to the sheltered banks of the Kus-

17

kokwim and Yukon rivers, and their numerous tributaries. .
Early in June ... the first eggs are laid: by June 20 and 25
the downy young are usually out, and when approached the female
crouches close to the ground among her brood. When she sees it is
impossible to escape notice she rolls and tumbles away as if mortally
injured, and thus tries to lead one from her chicks. At the same time
the young try to escape by running away in different directions."

The rock ptarmigan, in its typical form, is also a common sum-
mer bird on mountain ranges all over the Territory, as is the sharp-
tailed grouse; the latter, however, does not extend its range west-
ward beyond the Ramparts of the Yukon, and it frequents only the
more open parts of the country.

Falcons, Eagles, and Owls

Birds of prey find a congenial home in these northern forests,
which abound in small mammals and birds upon which they may
feed throughout the year; for when the winter's snows bury the
mice, lemmings, and ground-squirrels in their underground homes, the
hardy rabbits, and the ever-present ptarmigans and snow-birds on
the ground, and grosbeaks, jays, finches, and other winged quarry
in the trees suffice to feed the few owls and falcons that remain, since
most of the hawks, at least, migrate southward in autumn.

The marsh hawk is common wherever open, swampy places at-
tract it. The sharp-shin is present also, and nests in spruces along
the rivers. The goshawk was seen by Bishop ; and Nelson says it is
a characteristic bird of the northern interior, breeding nearly to the
Arctic Circle. The skins of these, and of some other small hawks,
used to be highly prized among the redmen of the region for orna-
mental purposes. The western redtails and the roughleg are com-
monly seen, but Swainson's hawk is rare. Bishop and Osgood con-
sider the redtail the more abundant.

Both kinds of eagles inhabit all the wooded parts of Alaska; and
occasionally the bald eagle remains here throughout the winter,
when most of its race migrate to warmer regions, where streams are
free from ice. The gray gyrfalcon is not numerous, but is resident ; and
the duck hawk is found as far north as the limit of trees, and nests
numerously along the Yukon and other rivers, laying, its eggs so
promptly that the young are able to fly early in June. Bishop notes
that in the neighborhood of the eastern boundary these hawks may be
seen almost daily, and that their eyries are numerous on the ledges
of the rocky cliffs ; but where no such cliffs occur they nest in tall

18

spruces. Specimens shot by his party had been feeding on marsh
hawks, jays, crossbills, sparrows and other birds. The pigeon hawk
and sparrow hawk visit the same region — 'the latter rarely. The
osprey fishes along all the larger rivers and lakes, wandering far to
the northward.

Several owls are to be found in the interior of Alaska. The far-
ranging short-eared owl is common, but is migratory. The great
gray species is perhaps the best known owl of the wooded interior,
to which it is almost exclusively confined. It is a sleepy, stupid
sort of bird, at any rate in the daytime, when it may sometimes be
caught in the hand without seeking to avoid this misadventure. It
is a hunter of small birds. Dr. Ball wrote that in his day old men and
old women among the Indians ate it, but added : "The natives have a
superstition that if young persons eat it they will become old very
soon and die."

Another common species is the handsome little Richardson's owl,
and this, also, is frequently taken from its perch by hand, and is the
subject of legends and bed-time stories among both Eskimos and
Indians, who sometimes keep it as a pet for the children. It usually
nests in a hole in a tree, but now and then takes possession of the
abandoned nest of a jay or thrush.

The western, or subarctic, variety of the great horned owl is to
be discovered in both summer and winter in all parts of Alaska, al-
though restricted to the wooded district during its breeding-season
which begins early, sometimes early in April. The nest is a large
structure, made of twigs and branches and placed in a spruce tree in
the depths of the woods. Mr. Nelson, in his Report, gives a vivid
picture of the feelings inspired in the winter traveler by the hooting
of these great owls, as he listens to them in the darkness and toil of
a sledge-journey across the snowy and otherwise utterly silent wastes.
"When the winter draws on/' he tells us, "and during the famine
period just before the spring opens, it is common for them [the owls]
to get a foot into a fox-trap while they are foraging for food. Again,
in early June, as the fur-traders come down the Yukon with their
furs they not infrequently bring the half-grown young of these birds
as pets."

The snowy owl, on the contrary, is rare in the wooded district,
but the American hawk owl is familiar throughout the year. "This,"
Nelson remarks, "is perhaps the most abundant bird of prey through-
out the entire wooded part of northern Alaska. It is rather closely
limited to the region of spruce and pine forests of the interior, and

19

occurs along the open coasts of the Arctic and Bering seas merely
as a straggler." Joseph Grinnell, in his essay on the Birds of Kotze-
bue Sound, gives an interesting note of his experience with this
owl, from which I quote :

In the spring of 1899 their arrival was noted on April 10th in the Yukon
district of Alaska. At this date they were already paired, and a female secured
contained large ova. On April 26th I located a pair of hawk owls which by
their restlessness indicated a nesting site near by. The nest was finally
found, but there were as yet no eggs. It was in the hollow end of a leaning
dead spruce stub about 10 feet above the ground. The dry rotten chips in
the bottom were modelled into a neatly rounded depression. The male bird
was quite noisy often repeating a far-reaching rolling trill. Both birds fre-
quently uttered a low whine, alternately answering one another. On May 8th,
while snow-shoeing across the country toward the base of the Jade moun-
tains, my attention was attracted by the distant trill of a hawk owl.
I had given up hope of finding a nest and had started on, when, by mere
chance, I happened to catch sight of a hole in a dead spruce fully 200 yards
away. A close approach showed a sitting bird which afterwards proved
to be the male. Its tail was protruding at least two inches from the hole,
while the bird's head was turned so that it was facing out over its back.
When I tapped on the tree the bird left the nest, flew off about thirty yards,
turned and made for my head like a shot. It planted itself with its full weight
on to my skull, drawing blood from three claw-marks in my scalp. My hat
was torn off and thrown twelve feet. All this the owl did with scarcely a
stop in its headlong swoop. When as far on the other side the courageous
bird made another dash and then another, before I had collected enough
wits to get in a shot. The female which was evidently the bird I had first
discovered on look-out duty then made her appearance, but was less vociferous.
The nest contained three newly hatched young and six eggs in various ad-
vanced stages of incubation. The downy young, although their eyes were
still tightly closed and they were very feeble, uttered a continuous wheedling
cry, especially if the tree were tapped or they were in any way jarred. This
could be heard twenty feet away from the base of the tree. The nest cavity
was evidently an enlarged woodpecker's hole.

Woodland Species

The kingfishers, arriving early from the south in large numbers,
frequent all the streams of the interior, digging nest-tunnels in their
banks, and remaining until the freezing of the rivers compels them to
betake themselves to less severe latitudes.

Both hairy and downy woodpeckers abound, making their nest-
holes by preference in the stubs and trunks of deciduous trees, yet
occupying spruces whenever birches and poplars are not at hand.
Two species of three-toed woodpeckers also breed in these forests, as
also does the northern variety of the eastern flicker. Bishop says that
these flickers are the most common of all woodpeckers about Fort
Yukon.

Whether the hummingbird of the coast (Selasphorus rufus) ever
crosses the mountains into the interior is not certainly known ; no
doubt it does so now and then, as it appears to be a regular visitor to
the head-valleys of the Yukon River.

20

Passing to the tribe of insectivorous perching-birds — the song-
sters of wood and meadow — we find the list in this district a short
one ; yet representatives of many kinds familiar in the south resort to
these far northern valleys and hills to rear their young during the
brief season of warmth allotted to them for that purpose. Among these
are several flycatchers, the first on the list being the phoebe. It is
especially welcome because it settles at once in the villages and
about the miners' cabins, and dares, with engaging confidence, to place
its nest of mud and moss upon the projecting end of some house-log,
or beneath the porch or eaves. Where rocky cliffs border the Yukon
the phcebes build their nests on the ledges, as seems to have been
their primitive custom everywhere. Their highway of migration is
along the course of the great river.

The olive-sided flycatcher, which one would expect to find here,
does not seem to go much north of British Columbia. The plaintive
call of Richardson's, or the Alaska, wood pewee, is to be heard in
summer even beyond the Arctic Circle, and its eggs may be looked
for in July. The alder and Hammond's flycatchers are numerous in
this district wherever thickets of alders and willows grow in warm
valleys.

Steller's jay occasionally follows the Yukon north to its great
bend near the international boundary. The jay of Alaska, however, is
the "smoky" form (fumifrons) of the Canada jay, known to everyone
by such names as whisky jack, camp-robber, moose-bird, and the
like. It is as bold in its nest-making as in other things, and often
lays eggs which must hatch in a temperature below zero. Joseph
Grinnell gives a graphic account of its nesting, supplementing the
amusing story told in Mr. Nelson's Report of the superstitious fear
the natives formerly felt toward disturbing the nests of these birds,
which, they believed would revenge themselves by prolonging the
winter. Mr. Grinnell writes:

Toward spring the jays became remarkably reclusive, and their visits
around camp were less and less frequent. I suspected that by the middle of
March they would nest, and I consequently spent much time in fruitless
search. . . . Finally I saw a jay with a large bunch of white down in
its bill, flying back along the timber. . . . Not until May 13th, however,
did I finally find an occupied jay's nest, and its discovery then was by mere
accident. It was twelve feet up in a small spruce amongst a clump of larger
ones on a low ridge. There were no "tell-tale sticks and twigs on the snow
beneath," as Nelson, notes, and in fact nothing to indicate its location. The
nest rested on several horizontal or slightly drooping branches against the
south side of the main trunk. : . . The walls and "bottom consisted" of
a closely felted mass of black hair-Hke lichen, many short bits of spruce
twigs, feathers of ptarmigan and hawk owl, strips of a fibrous bark, and a
few grasses. ' The interior was lined with the softest and finest grained
material. The whole fabric is of such a quality as to accomplish the greatest
conservation of warmth, whicn certainly must be necessary where incubation
is carried on --in belo'w 'zero- weather.

21

The raven wanders over the entire Territory, but is much less
conspicuous and familiar in the interior than on the coast. It is
resident; and Nelson gives a fine picture of the part it plays in the
terrible landscape and experiences of midwinter life amid the wastes
of the lower Yukon Valley. No crows reach this country, but the
rusty blackbird is a regular, although infrequent, visitor, extending
its breeding-range to the northern limit of tree-growth.

Finches and Other Small Songsters

The finch family, as would be expected, is numerously represent-
ed, some of those which haunt trees, as the grosbeaks, being among
the most abundant of Alaskan birds. The Alaskan pine grosbeak is
everywhere abundant and fearless all the year round. Grinnell
furnishes the best account extant of this very interesting bird :

In September and October pine grosbeaks were quite numerous, being
often met with in companies of six to a dozen, immatures and adults together.
They were usually among the scattering birch and spruce which line the
low ridges. There, until the snow covered the ground, they fed on blueberries,
rose-apples and cranberries. During the winter their food was much the
same as that of the redpolls — seeds and buds of birch, alder and willow, and
sometimes tender spruce needles. In the severest winter weather they
were not often in the spruce, but had then retired into the willow beds.
The UvSual note is a clear whistle of three syllables. The native name, ki-u-tak,
represents it. Then there was a low, mellow, one-syllabled note uttered
among members of a flock when alarmed. Twice I noted solitary males,
when flying across the woods, singing a loud, rollicking warble, much like a
purple finch. One morning, the 18th of February, found me across the river
skirting the willows in search of ptarmigan. Although it was 50 degrees
below zero, a pine grosbeak, from the depths of a nearby thicket, suddenly
burst forth in a rich melodious strain, something like our southern black-
headed grosbeak. He continued, though in a more subdued fashion, for
several minutes. Such surroundings and conditions for a bird-song like this!
Again one day in March, during a heavy snow-storm, a bright red male sang
similarly at intervals for nearly an hour, from an alder thicket near the cabin,
and as summer approached their song was heard more and more frequently.

Not until May 25th did I discover a nest. This was barely commenced,
but on June 3rd, when I visited the locality again, the nest was completed
and contained four fresh eggs. The female was incubating, and remained on
the nest until nearly touched. The nest was eight feet above the ground on
the lower^ horizontal branches of a small spruce growing on the side of a
wooded ridge. The nest was a shallow affair, very much like a tanager's.
. The eggs were pale Nile blue with a possible greenish tinge, dotted
and spotted with pale lavender, drab and sepia.

The red, or American, crossbill is extremely rare, and perhaps
does not occur at all north of the Alaskan Mountains ; but the white-
winged crossbill is to be seen everywhere that forests grow. It is
more familiar, Nelson tells us, than the pine grosbeak, frequently
coming low down among the smaller growth; and it is a common
sight to see parties of them swinging about in every conceivable
position in the tops of the cotton-woods or birch trees, where the

22

birds are busily engaged in feeding upon the buds. "They pay no
heed to a passing party of sleds except, perhaps, that an individual
will fly down to some convenient bush, whence he curiously examines
the strange procession, and then, his curiosity satisfied or confidence
restored, back he goes to his companions and continues his feeding.
When fired at they utter chirps of alarm, and call to each other with
a long, sweet note, something similar to that of the goldfinch."

Equally abundant all the year round are the two redpolls — both
the hoary redpoll and the common "linnet." They are alike in range
and habits, and in July come trooping about, young and old, in large
parties, with great confidence and a peculiar pertness, taking posses-
sion of the premises and using the roofs and fences for convenient
perches. "On warm sunshiny days during April they come familiarly
up to the very windows and doors, and peer about with an odd mix-
ture of confidence and curiosity, examining everything, and scarcely
deigning to move aside as the people pass back and forth. By the
8th of June their young are frequently hatched, and by the 1st of
July are fully fledged."

The snowflake resorts in summer to the northernmost parts of
the interior to rear its young; but as the cold weather comes on
nearly all go south to the warmer or less snowy parts of Canada,
and the same may be said of the Lapland longspur.

The western savanna sparrow is not uncommon, Osgood finding
many young about Circle City in August ; and Gambell's, or the inter-
mediate, white-crowned sparrow is one of the most numerous and
familiar of summer birds all over the Territory, beginning to nest
about May 20. Its nest ordinarily is placed on the ground, rarely in
low bushes, and is lined with deer's hair and feathers, or sometimes
with club-moss. The four eggs "have a clayey-white ground-color,
thickly covered with small reddish spots," and measure about .87 by
.64 of an inch.

The golden-crowned sparrow is much less often seen in the
interior than near the coast. The western tree sparrow is very
numerous, but the chipping sparrow much less so. In regard to the
tree sparrow Nelson gives many particulars :

Upon its first arrival it comes about the trading-posts and native villages,
frequenting the weed-patches. After a short visit here, and when the snow
has melted from portions of their bushy retreats, they leave the vicinity
of man and betake themselves to the hill-sides, where . . . the young
are hatched and become fully fledged early in July. Toward the last of this
month — sometimes by the middle — the young and old come trooping back
to the vicinity of the houses, ready to feast with numbers of their fellows in
a motley crowd among the weed-patches and in the garden-plot. During

23

the last half of July and the entire month of August, with various others of
their kind they may be found flitting about the buildings, or even coming
within the yard and up to the very doorsteps, their bright black eyes carefully
searching every inch of ground for morsels of food. In spring these birds
attain their breeding plumage by the wearing away of the grayish tips. . . .
In the north, before taking leave for their winter home, they gather in flocks
on the bushy borders of the woods, and their low, sweet chorus is heard
rising and falling as they tune their gentle pipes for the songs they are to
utter later in the season. This bird's power of song, however, is not great,
and its music is, perhaps, most pleasing when thus heard in chorus.

The snow-bird (Junco) also breeds abundantly all along the
Yukon and its tributary valleys. "The slate-colored junco and the
western chipping sparrow," remarks Dr. Bishop, speaking of the
region about Fort Yukon, "were most common about the brush-
heaps left by the lumbermen, weed-grown clearings resulting from
forest-fires, and about cabins or the towns. Every nest found was
sunk in the ground to the rim in an open place under a weed or a
tussock of grass."

None of the varieties of the song sparrow goes so far north ; but
its place is taken by Lincoln's sparrow, whose habits are similar,
and whose delightful singing is heard all over the wooded interior.
The fox sparrow, too, regales the ear in summer wherever trees or
bushes grow.

Both the cliff and the barn swallows cheer the hearts of the
people in towns, as well as the residents in lonely miners' and pros-
pectors' cabins scattered through the mountains, placing their nests
confidingly under roofs as soon as these are provided for them; yet
many colonies of both species inhabit the wild cliffs. The tree
swallows, nesting in abandoned woodpecker-holes, and in hollow
stubs, are regular summer visitors, along with the violet-green and
the bank swallows ; the violet-green species customarily nests in
the cliffs, but Dr. Bishop records that several times he saw it entering
tunnels resembling those of bank swallows, great numbers of whose
burrows pitted the earthen banks along the Yukon.

The Bohemian waxwing is a resident of northern Alaska, where
the first nest and eggs on record were obtained at Fort Yukon in
1861 by Robert Kennicott. This nest was placed in a spruce growing
at the edge of a swamp, and both it and the eggs much resembled
those of the familiar cedar-bird. Bishop furnished an interesting note
on this bird :

Two males that we noticed while descending Thirty-Mile River were
perched on the topmost sprays of tall spruces, uttering a lisping whistle at
frequent intervals. One of them flew after a passing insect in the manner
of a flycatcher. Flocks were easily approached, and when one bird was
shot the res't would scatter, and each would alight on the top branch of some
spruce" and utter a characteristic call-note. This note, which we often hear

24

from passing flocks, was similar to the whistle just mentioned. The birds
that we collected had been feeding on the purple berries of some unidentified
plant.

The northern butcher-bird is also common all over the interior
of Alaska; and Nelson gives a pleasantly full account of its singing,
and of other features of its summer life, making it appear to much
better advantage than does the ordinary biography, which dwells too
much on the bird's predatory habits, most noticeable in winter.

A surprising number of those delicate migrants, the wood-
warblers, travel annually to this far-northern region — a fact surpris-
ing less on account of the cold of the climate than of the distance
from their winter home, and of the high mountains which must be
passed over in the flight from the Canadian plains to the valley of the
Yukon. Yet the wooded interior of Alaska harbors in summer great
numbers of yellow warblers, orange-crowned warblers, myrtle-birds,
blackpolls, oven-birds, blackcaps and water-thrushes ; and Mr. Nelson
devotes many pages to his observations upon their pretty ways, which
do not differ essentially from those observable in more southern
latitudes.

The pipit lark, the dipper, the red-breasted nuthatch, the chickadee
(in three varieties), and the ruby-crowned kinglet of Alaska, are the
same attractive little creatures so well known elsewhere.

This brings the list for this district up to the thrushes, a group
that is well represented, happily for the Alaskan people. The gray-
cheeked, or Alice's, thrush is to be met with abundantly all over
Alaska in summer; and equally numerous at that season throughout
the wooded parts of the Territory is the local buff-cheeked variety
of Swainson's, or the olive-backed thrush ; but it differs very slightly
from the type in appearance, and not at all in habits. The music of
even these charming choristers, however, is surpassed by that of the
solitaire :

On the hot noon of June 26, while seated on the summit of a hill some
1,500 feet above Caribou Crossing, I heard the most beautiful bird song that
has ever delighted my ear. It seemed to combine the strength of the robin,
the joyousness and soaring quality of the bobolink, and the sweetness and
purity of the wood thrush. Starting low and apparently far away, it gained
in intensity and volume until it filled the air, and I looked for the singer
just above my head. I finally traced the song to a Townsend solitaire that
was seated on a dead tree about 150 yards away, pouring forth this volume of
melody without leaving its perch. The singer came close enough later to
make identification certain. — Bishop.

The robin also occurs numerously wlierever woods grow to give
it food and shelter; and it is seen in the spring migrations on the
coast of Bering Sea, but few, if any, breed there. Its relatives, the
Oregon robin and the mountain bluebird, occasionally appear near
the Canadian boundary.

25

ARCTIC COASTAL DISTRICT

BY E. W. NELSON

Alaska is widely famed for its gold-placers, fur-seals, salmon-
fisheries, majestic glaciers and awe-inspiring mountains. To these
and other favors, bestowed by the generous hand of nature, is added
a bird-life wonderfully rich and varied in comparison with that of the
same latitudes on the eastern side of North America. This is due to
more favorable climatic conditions, to the varied physical character
of the land-area, and to the abundance of small animal-life in the
ocean, which affords an inexhaustible supply of food to sea-fowl.

Along the extreme southeast coast of the Territory lies a series
of heavily forested islands ; far to the west are strung the rock-bound,
treeless islands of the Aleutian chain ; to the northward bordering
the coasts of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean lies a broad belt of
arctic tundra, separating the sparsely wooded interior from the sea.
These coastal plains are cut by the great Yukon, Kuskokwim, and
Kowak rivers, flowing down from the interior, where they rise on
the slopes of far-distant mountains. This great region offers a superb
background for the swarming bird-life that visits it in summer.

Alaska is situated so far north that its year is divided into only
two seasons, a short summer and a long, cold winter. From the
middle of May until the middle of July there is much calm and
sunny weather, with a delightful temperature. This pleasant period
is especially favorable to the successful nesting of myriads of birds
of both land and sea, and enables them to bring their downy young
through the first few precarious weeks of their lives. It is amazing
to note the rapidity with which flowers spring up and bloom as soon
as the snow melts from the tundra; and in sheltered places grasses
and flowering plants grow rankly, sometimes waist high, even directly
under the Arctic Circle, as I saw on the shore of Kotzebue Sound.

Along the coast of Bering Sea the sun sinks only a short distance
below the horizon during a few hours of the twenty-four, so that in
June the light at midnight is sufficient to enable one easily to read
fine print. The birds at this season observe the nightly hours of rest,
however, with the same regularity shown where night and day are
definitely marked. At eight or nine o'clock at night all except the
nocturnal species retire to secluded spots to rest until three or four
o'clock in the morning. The noise of their many voices dies suddenly

26

away as the birds go to sleep, and quietness reigns unbroken, except
for the melodious songs of the old-squaws, or the occasional wild,
laughing cry of a loon. During the long twilight of these early
summer nights I often wandered for hours over the silent tundra
southeast of St. Michael, watching the sleeping birds on the number-
less ponds as well as on the open land. From 9 o'clock in the even-
ing until about 3 o'clock in the morning the sight of birds on the
wing was rare, except when occasionally straggling parties of Sabine's
gulls appeared. These exquisitely beautiful birds trailed silently
by, one by one, at all hours, their black heads and wing-borders con-
trasting with their snow-white bodies. Now and then an arctic tern
would pass, and more rarely still a wandering loon.

The day's activity is usually begun in the morning by the clang-
ing cries of geese, quickly echoed by a medley of other bird-notes
from all directions. The bird-world becomes at once awake. Flocks
of ducks and geese move away to feeding-grounds, gulls and terns
circle and hover over ponds, crarics stalk solemnly about, and small
waders are busy everywhere.

Asiatic Visitors to Alaska

Alaska is separated from the nearest point of Asia at Bering
Strait by a distance of only about forty-eight miles. This nearness
makes it certain that various East-Asian birds will appear from time
to time within our borders, and, in fact, more than twenty species
of Old World birds have already been found in western Alaska;
two of these, the Pacific golden plover and the bristle-thighed curlew,
winter on the southeastern coast of Asia or in the Polynesian Islands,
but breed in northeastern Siberia and on the Bering-Sea coast of
Alaska. The typical form of golden plover, familiar as a migrant in
the eastern United States, occupies only that part of Alaska from
Kotzebue Sound north, and the more richly golden form of the
Pacific replaces it to the southward of Bering Strait. The European
teal breeds throughout the Aleutian Islands, where it replaces the
green-winged teal of the mainland. The sharp-tailed sandpiper, a
beautiful species somewhat similar to the pectoral but much more
richly colored, swarms across from northeastern Siberia after the
breeding-season, and is. very numerous along the Alaskan coast of
Bering Sea. The yellow wagtails, also, breed on this Alaskan coast
as well as in eastern Siberia, but in autumn all of the Alaskan
ones return to Asia for their southward migration. The beautiful
little spoon-billed sandpiper, the dotterel, the Mongolian plover,
Cassin's bullfinch, the Siberian red-spotted, blue-throated warbler,

27

the willow warbler, and the red-throated pipit, occur as wanderers
from Siberia at the end of July or in August, but return to Asia for the
southward migration.

The Pribilof, or Fur-Seal, Islands are the most notable part of
Alaska for the number of Old World strays which have been taken
there. Among these are the tufted duck, the European pochard, the
long-toed stint, the ruff, Tegmalm's owl, the Kamchatkan cuckoo,
and the Japanese hawfinch. The information on this subject already
obtained on these islands, despite so small an amount of work done,
indicates that numerous other Old World birds are likely to be
added to our fauna there. Wandering species appear to drop in at
these islands much as they do on the island of Helgoland in the
German Sea, which has become famed in bird-annals for the extraor-
dinary number of its strange visitants.

Braving an Arctic Winter

In spite of its northern situation and the arctic conditions that
prevail in winter over the greater part of the Territory, Alaska
possesses a long list of birds that remain within its borders the year
round, some even in the extreme north — hardy spirits that hold their
own through all the severities of a boreal winter.

Conspicuous among these is the Alaskan jay, the northern repre-
sentative of the well known Canada jay, from which it differs only
a little in coloration. Like the Canada jay, it is called "camp-robber"
and "whisky-jack," and is a common and familiar visitor to camps
and villages, especially in winter, when these jays are amusingly,
and often exasperatingly, audacious in their raids on any unguarded
food. If encouraged they become extremely tame, and will enter
cabins to enjoy the hospitality of the occupant, or will even fly to
meet a friend when he goes abroad, alighting on his head or shoulder,
and otherwise making themselves interesting companions to the
lonely dweller in an isolated winter camp. A typical instance of the
impish humor of these birds was given by an encounter 1 had with
one early in June on the coast of Bering Sea. I was crossing from
the mouth of the Yukon to St. Michael in a large kyak, with two
Eskimo companions. About midway we camped and slept for a few
hours on the low point of Cape Romanoff. When the sun arose, very
early in the morning, we made a fire of driftwood and had our break-
fast close to a scraggy little patch of leafless alders near the beach,
which were the only shrubs in sight and appeared too small and scat-
tered to conceal any bird. Finally we launched our kyak and started

28

to paddle away. At the first stroke a shrill, exultant note caused us
to look back, and there, balanced on the tip of the largest alder stood
a whisky jack, his attitude and cries expressing contemptuous de-
rision at our failure to see him while camped within ten feet. The
Eskimos were as much amused as myself by this impudent perform-
ance, and we paddled away laughing, while the bird proceeded to
search our camping-place for scraps of food.

The water-ouzel, or dipper, is another of the notable land-birds
that lives throughout the year in the North. It is smaller than the
robin, has a much shorter tail, and is of nearly uniform dark leaden
gray. The ouzel dwells along small swift streams, and feeds on
insects and other minute animals that it finds along the margins or
seeks by diving into the water and walking along the bottom. In
winter its distribution is limited strictly to the vicinity of openings in
the ice, where the current is so swift that it does not freeze over.
Through these openings the ouzels reach the bottom of the streams
and gather their food. It appears almost incredible that these small
birds can exist by haunting the icy margins of such openings in the
vicinity of the northern limit of trees, and in temperatures often
ranging from 50° to 70° F. below zero; but they have dense and
closely set feathers that turn water like the plumage of a duck.

That some water-fowl are equally hardy, is shown by the obser-
vations of Charles Sheldon during the winter of 1907-8, which he
spent on the north base of Mt. McKinley. On January 3, 1908, he
visited a point on the Toklat River about forty miles above its mouth
where a swift rapid about three miles long prevents the water from
freezing throughout the winter. Here a flock of about three hun-
dred mallard ducks were wintering, and were feeding solely upon the
dead salmon and unhatched salmon eggs lodged in the bottom of
the stream. Sheldon reports that mallards had been noted wintering
at this place during the preceding seven years, and mentions several
other places in interior Alaska where mallards are known to winter.
These observations show that birds are indifferent to the lowest win-
ter temperatures, as long as sufficient food is available.

One winter during my residence in the North Jack McQuesten
brought me a fine specimen of the fork-tailed petrel, that he had cap-
tured toward the end of November at an opening in the ice about
seventy-five miles above the mouth of the Tanana River. This bird
was evidently a stray individual that had become lost over the snow-
covered land, and had wandered many hundreds of miles from its
proper wintering-range in the North Pacific. It was extremely emaci-

29

ated, and evidently was about to perish from exhaustion. Such trag-
edies are common in bird-life.

Although so far north, Alaska has within its borders several
species of grouse. The sharp-tailed grouse ranges westward from
the Yukon Territory, in Canada, to the vicinity of Fairbanks on the
Tanana River. The gray ruffed grouse and the spruce partridge oc-
cupy the forested parts of the interior, and the Oregon ruffed grouse
and Franklin's grouse inhabit the forests of the southern parts of
the Territory. In addition to these handsome birds Alaska is the
home of several species of ptarmigan, living on the bare mountains,
or on open tundras, wherever arctic conditions prevail.

All of the ptarmigan of Alaska have a mottled buff-and-brown
summer plumage, changing at the approach of winter to an almost
entirely snowy white one, which is worn until the ground begins to
become free of snow in spring. Of these grouse the white-tailed
ptarmigan, which lives above timberline on the bare mountain-tops
south of the Yukon, is least numerous and not often seen. It may be
distinguished from the others by its pure white tail, the others having
black tails hidden under the long overlying white feathers of the
rump. The rock ptarmigan is a little larger, and is more generally
distributed than the white-tailed species. The only remaining species,
the willow grouse, or willow ptarmigan, is generally distributed over
all the tundras and open barrens of the Alaskan mainland. It is the
largest and by far the most abundant of all the ptarmigan, and soon
becomes a familiar bird to everyone who travels across country in
that region.

In winter these birds gather in enormous flocks, numbering
hundreds, along willow-grown bottoms south of the Yukon River.
When one comes on such a congregation, and the pure white birds
suddenly take wing, it looks like an explosion of the snowy surface
of the ground. Sfnall coveys, probably families of the previous sum-
mer, occur here and there wherever food is to be found. Being ground-
roosting birds, they are in constant danger of being stalked at night
by foxes, and sometimes by lynxes. In order to avoid making a trail
likely to lead an enemy to them, these small coveys, when going to
roost, often fly to the middle of a patch of scrubby alders, or other
small bushes, and drop into the snow in their midst. Here they re-
main imbedded to the level of their backs in the snow until morning,
when they take flight by springing straight up, leaving clean-cut
moulds of their forms, and fan-shaped marks on each side in the snow
showing where the tips of their wings cut the surface at the first

30

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stroke. The snowy plumage of these birds in winter renders them
as difficult to see at that season as their brown coat does in summer.
Ptarmigan and other grouse suffer heavily throughout the year from
the birds of prey that haunt their territory and pursue them relent-
lessly— eagles, goshawks, gyrfalcons, owls, ravens, etc.

Golden eagles occur throughout most of Alaska, ranging to the
Arctic Coast and well out on the Aleutian chain. The Alaskan bald
eagle also is numerous, and in certain places extraordinarily nu-
merous. The multitude of these handsome birds upon the islands
and along parts of the southern coast of Alaska is almost incredible
to one who knows the bald eagle only elsewhere. Sometimes scores
of them may be seen congregated about the shores of a single small
bay in southeastern Alaska and they are to be seen along the entire
length of the Aleutian chain. These eagles are reported to be a se-
rious pest in places where fox-farming has been attempted, as they
destroy the foxes, especially the young. The great gray sea-eagle
also crosses sometimes from the coast of Kamtschatka to the Aleutian
Islands.

Horned owls are numerous in the wooded districts, and become
very plentiful during years when rabbits or lemmings are especially
abundant, providing an unusual food-supply. The traveler along
the frozen surface of the Yukon on winter nights frequently hears
the hollow notes of these birds from the forests which loom like
black walls on each side of the river. Late in the autumn they wan-
der from their usual haunts, and sometimes appear at St. Michael or
elsewhere on the barren tundra.

The snowy owl, the arctic member of this family, makes its home
on the open tundra. It is more diurnal than most other owls, and in
winter may be seen gliding over the snow close to the surface, when
it is difficult to follow with the eye on account of its lack of color.
During a sledge-trip south of the Yukon, one December, I saw a
freshly killed snowy owl whose immaculate plumage was suffused
throughout with a rich and beautiful shade of lemon-yellow, exactly
as a salmon-color or a rosy red suffuses the plumage of certain
gulls and terns in spring. The following morning this lovely tinge
had almost completely vanished, only a trace of it remaining under
the wings and near the bases of the feathers.

Ravens occur throughout Alaska, and are abundant along the
southern coast and on the Aleutian Islands, where they come familiarly
about the settlements, and have attracted the interested comment of
visitors since the early days of the Russian occupation. At Unalaska

31

the ravens live in large numbers about the village, perching on the
roofs of the houses, and hopping about among domestic fowls as famil-
iarly as the chickens themselves. These ravens spend much of their
time on the wing, circling high over the town and bay, and perform-
ing a series of extraordinary evolutions. They sometimes drop a
long distance in a series of heels-over-head revolutions like an acro-
bat, ending in a long glide on outspread wings or in some other ec-
centric performance, always accompanied by explosive cork-drawing
sounds and a variety of other cries and croakings. They appear to
enjoy especially making these playful flights during hard gales, when
the entire raven-colony will take part. They soar, turn, and twist, on
facile wing, and fill the air with a medley of strange cries, as if taking
impish joy in the fierce wind roaring across the rugged mountain-
sides and beating the surface of the bay into a froth of flying spray.
Although seeming so jocular in mood, these black-garbed birds are
remorseless pirates, robbing other birds of their eggs and young
whenever opportunity offers.

Bird-Life of the Sea Islands

My first approach to Alaskan shores was about the middle of
May, when we neared Akutan Pass on our way to Unalaska Harbor.

PALLAS'S MURRES ON BOGOSLOF ISLAND IN BERING SEA
From a Photograph by A. C. Bent

The morning was clear and absolutely calm, the only breaks in the
glassy surface of the swelling sea those made by the wake of the
steamer, and the ripples circling from the breasts of thousands of
water-fowl — murres, auklets, gulls, and fulmars — and a few fur-seals.

The swarming abundance of bird-life about the rocky shores of
the Aleutian chain, and of the islands of Bering Sea, adds wonderfully
to the interest of these frowning coasts. The cliff-walled shores of the
Fur-Seal group, and of the islets in Bering Strait, which stand like

32

stepping-stones between America and Asia, are occupied in spring
and summer by uncounted millions of murres, murrelets, auklets,
cormorants, and gulls, nesting in crevices and on ledges along the
ragged fronts and slopes of the rocky cliffs, which often rise a thou-
sand feet or more sheer from the stormy sea at their base. When
startled from their perches on the Diomede and King islands in
Bering Strait the murres and auklets fill the air with whirring forms,
so that the islets appear like huge bee-hives in swarming time. For-
tunately the vast nurseries of the Aleutian Islands are now set aside
as National bird-refuges, where, through all the coming years, the
birds may rear their young in comparative safety.

The Aleutian Islands are swept by so many gales and fierce local
storms, or "woollys," that if birds are to exist there they must con-
tinue their affairs despite them and they have become able to a • so.
As a consequence, even in the fiercest gales, when a man has hard
work to face the wind, he may hear the ptarmigan crowing on the
hills and song sparrows and wrens singing in the little valleys and
coves near the shore.

The number of land-birds on these islands is extremely limited
nevertheless. Most notable are the ptarmigan. These are close rela-
tives of the rock ptarmigan of the mainland, and are found throughout
the Aleutian chain. Owing to climatic influences and isolation the
ptarmigan on each of the larger islands or groups of islands have be-
come a little different from the others and naturalists have recognized
seven kinds among them.

On Akutan Island I once saw an Aleutian wren, a little brown
bird, clinging to a twig of dwarf willow a foot or so high on the crest
of a cliff, and pouring forth its soul in melodious song, while a heavy
gale swept over the island and whipped the bird on its perch back
and forth until it seemed as if the songster must be torn loose and
blown away to sea. Another conspicuous habitue is a gigantic
song sparrow, so strongly built that he can well withstand his harsh
surroundings. A large brown finch with rosy sides also makes its
home there; and three species of snowflakes dwell on the barren
coasts and islands of Bering Sea, their contrasting black-and-white
plumage making them conspicuous on the dull brown tundra. The
presence of eagles and certain other birds of prey is elsewhere
alluded to.

On the heavily wooded islands of southeastern Alaska the bird-
life is closely related to that of the adjoining humid and forested area
of British Columbia and the coast of Washington. Among the most

33

interesting of the birds here is the rufous hummingbird — a dainty lit-
tle species, the male of which is bright rusty rufous with a flaming
coppery-red gorget. These pygmy birds rear their young along the
coast northward to the 61st parallel of latitude in Prince William
Sound, where they endure a raw and extremely inclement summer
climate in a region of gigantic glaciers and of mountain-sides clothed
in snow.

The Bird-Year at St. Michael

During the years I lived on St. Michael Island, the coming and
going of birds about the small group of log-houses which formed the
trading-post were constant features of interest; and the arrival of the
birds in spring was always heralded with especial joy. During the
last days of April or first of May everyone is on the alert to note the
first goose of the season. The ground at this time is still covered with
snow, and the sea overlaid with the heavy pack-ice to the far hori-
zon, and zero-temperatures are common. , In the interior, however,
the season is farther advanced, and from there come solitary geese
spying out the land along the coast from one to two weeks in advance
of the main body, which appear to be waiting behind the horizon
until the sun has bared most of the broad tundras, flooded the ponds,
and set icy streams running everywhere over the country. These first
arrivals come singly from the direction of the lower Yukon, flying
high over head, and uttering loud, clanging notes as they go speed-
ing in a wide circle over the wintry landscape. The passage of the
first of these harbingers of returning life and plenty is welcomed with
exultation by the fur-traders as well as by the Indians and Eskimos.
At the loud cry "Goose! Goose!" shouted joyously by the first to
see the newcomer, everyone, young and old, hurries out of doors,
shouting and dancing in a state of excitement difficult to appreciate
by one who has not gone through those long, slow, winter months
in the far North.

The yearly calendar of the birds about the houses usually began
some cheerless morning in May, on the border-line between winter
and spring, when we were greeted by the sharp tsip tsip of a tree spar-
row that had arrived over night and taken possession of adjacent
weed-patches. As the weather became milder the sparrows increased
and, in company with plump, rosy-breasted little redpolls, they were
seen everywhere, from the top of the wind-vane to the sun-dial out-
side the kitchen-window, whence they peeped in curiously. As the
snow decreased, both the tree sparrows and redpolls drifted away to
prepare their summer homes among the alders on some warm hill-

34

slope. Meanwhile the savanna sparrows had arrived and were en-
livening the muddy places, running in and out among the dead grasses
in playful pursuit of one another. At the first alarm they would
dive into the nearest cover of grass and weeds, only to reappear
quickly on the far side. As the season advanced the males mounted a
wood-pile or other conspicuous elevation, and uttered their weak, un-
musical songs.

By the 15th or 20th of May the white-crowned sparrow made its
appearance, and, capturing the top of the wood-pile from its smaller
relative, favored us with its sweetly modulated song. About the
same time the common barn swallows were seen circl:ng about, bub-
bling over with happy chuckling notes, as if rejoicing to be back again
after a winter in a far southern clime. By the middle of May the fox
sparrows were back, their first arrival being usually announced some
fine evening by their clear thrush-like whistle, usually from the top
of the cross on the old Russian church.

As June arrived we caught glimpses of an occasional black-
cap, or a yellow warbler, as one or both species paid brief visits
to a little garden by the kitchen. The barn swallows were now hard
at work building nests about the eaves, struggling with unwieldy
feathers or trying to carry off straws. This work was commonly
varied by fierce battles between the pugnacious males, which often
rolled about on the ground and pummeled one another with surpris-
ing tenacity and vigor. All obstacles were finally overcome, and in
various snug nooks under the eaves the birds guarded their treasure-
filled nests. At the same time a pair of savanna sparrows kept ward
over their egg-laden nest behind the ice-house,

Spring passed into summer, and from the middle of July until
well into August small birds made the vicinity of the houses a gen-
eral resort. The redpolls came in family parties all clad in dull colors,
for the rosy flush of youth had been worn from the parental breast
by the cares of family life. These little plebeians stuff themselves
with the good things they find in the garden and weed-patches, chirp-
ing and frolicking merrily. They infested the place, flitting about,
one moment see-sawing on a tall weed and the next hopping careless-
ly along the walk before one, or peering down from the eaves with
liliputian gravity. In return for this friendliness they were prime
favorites with all. The redpolls do not come alone, for in the yard,
and outside it, the bare ground is now the gathering place for young
Lapland longspurs, nearly as heedless of our presence as the redpolls.
They are, however, more sedate and business-like, and appear intent
on the search for food, running from place to place, their bills pointing

35

down and eyes intently scanning the ground, heedless of their sur
roundings, until a step close by frightens them away a short distance,
where the search for food begins again. They lack the pretty con-
fiding ways of the redpoll, and awaken but little interest.

The young yellow wagtails were also numerous at this time, and
searched damp spots in and about the yard for insects, their long
slender tails balancing up and down with a jaunty air. When the
tide went down they gathered along high-water mark to feast on the
fare there provided. Flitting from rock to rock, or picking their way
daintily from place to place, they offered a pleasing picture until,
their hunger satisfied, they arose and passed one by one to the bare
hillsides, where they remained until hunger called them back again.

In the latter part of July the garden was the center of attraction
for several species of warblers, which reveled among the insects of
the lettuce and turnip beds. The black-capped flycatcher was the
most numerous, although at times the black-poll warbler was about
equally common. Now and then a yellow warbler enlivened the place
like a ray of sunshine. Numerous young golden-crowned warblers,
and an occasional willow warbler, appeared at this time, and searched
the crevices of the fences, and even the eaves of the houses, for in-
sects. Along wet paths leading away from the houses, and some-
times from the yard itself, stray water-wagtails and titlarks were
sometimes started.

Golden-crowned and white-crowned sparrows claimed their
share of attention at this time, as they levied their tax upon the
garden, or flitted from fence to fence, ready to dive into a weed-patch
at the first alarm. The fox sparrow returned for a short and timid
farewell before seeking winter quarters, and was followed by the
tree sparrow.

Stray robins showed themselves once or twice during the sum-
mer, but a single brief visit to the garden was enough for them. A
few gray-cheeked thrushes usually appeared silently for a day or
two. More rarely still a wheatear appeared, skulking about the ends
of the houses, then hastening to take shelter in crevices among the
stones on the beach. A few white-bellied swallows fraternized a few
days with the barn swallows before going south ; and the latter were
busy during August preparing their young for the long journey to
warmer lands.

Sometimes black-breasted turnstones visited wet places about the
houses, while the semipalmated sandpiper was always numerous,
adventurous individuals even passing under the fence and investigat-

36

ing the yard after a rain. Once I caught a glimpse of a golden plover
making free of the area inside the fence, but it hastily departed.

As the end of August approached the sprightly forms which had
enlivened the surroundings one by one departed, so imperceptibly
that scarcely was one missed before we found that of all the goodly
company only a few stragglers remained. At this time we usually
had a visit from one or two downy woodpeckers, which clung pen-
sively to the rough logs in the sides of the buildings, apparently
dazed to find the tree-trunks all extending horizontally. After a short
stay they would leave us, headed straight back for the interior, where
the trees were in their proper position.

During September we were visited by various birds of prey.
Every autumn brought one or two hawk owls to perch on the wind-
vane or the flagstaff; while young goshawks and gyrfalcons circled
about, frequently alighting for a short time upon the fence or any con-
venient post. More rarely a pigeon hawk appeared for a moment and
then vanished. Several times during the evening at this season I
surprised a short-eared owl perched on the fence or hovering over
the yard, probably attracted by the tundra-mice which gathered about
the buildings at this time. One October a great horned owl used our
wood-pile as a lookout station for several successive evenings.

As winter set in occasional parties of black-capped titmice ap-
peared for a day or two, and less often a few Hudsonian titmice. Both
spent their time busily climbing about the walls of the old log-houses,
or examining the weed-patches nearby, all the time cheerily uttering
their familiar dee-dee-dee; but at last hurrying away as if without a
moment to spare. Then followed long blanks broken only by a stray
party of redpolls from the interior, or, as happened a few times, by
the visit of a ptarmigan, which would perch on the roof of the ware-
house, look with startled surprise at the men and dogs below, and then
precipitately depart.

Thus the bird-year went round at this barren place by the shore
of Bering Sea, and gave evidence that in the remotest spots some of
these companionable and interesting habitants are always to be found,
ready to enliven the solitude for whomsoever has eyes to see and
sympathy to appreciate them.

Spring and Summer on the Tundras

When the snow leaves the marshy tundras — those extensive
frozen barrens fringing the Alaskan coast of Bering Sea — they be-
come alive with a winged host wonderful in its numbers and variety.

37

The last days of May and the first week of June are notable for
their clear and pleasant days, during which the busy life of the
feathered residents goes rapidly on toward its culmination in nest-
building. Occasional short storms occur at this season ; and I was
much interested to note that the assembled water-fowl had to some
extent the power of recognizing the approaching storms as sensi-
tively as the barometer. The evening before the onset of one of these
spring storms was commonly heralded on the tundra, even in the
clearest weather, by wonderful outbursts of cries from the larger
water-fowl, and these would continue for half an hour before the
birds settled down for the night. Thousands of birds took part in

PACIFIC KITTIWAKES, NESTING ON WALRUS

ISLAND IN BERING SEA.
From a Photograph by A. C. Bent

producing the tremendous chorus. It was made up of the notes of
numberless loons in small ponds, joined with the rolling cries of
cranes, the bugling of flocks of swans on the large ponds, the clanging
of innumerable geese, the hoarse calls of various ducks, and the
screams of gulls and terns, all in a state of great excitement, appar-
ently trying to outdo one another in strength of voice. The result
was a volume of wildly harmonious music, so impressive that these
concerts still remain among my most vivid memories of the North.

It was a complete surprise to me, during my first spring in the
North, to learn that a large number of waders, and some of the ducks,
utter series of consecutive musical notes during the mating period

38

that are as clearly songs as the notes of a robin. Some of the songs
of these birds are harsh, and others grotesque, but there are no mutes
in this great congregation. The golden plovers, admirable in their
handsome breeding-dress, utter an extraordinarily plaintive and mu-
sical series of notes. They stand like beautiful statuettes on the
tundra as they give their song, sometimes several times in succes-
sion from the same spot before moving on.

One of the most interesting songsters among the waders is the
western semipalmated sandpiper, which is present along this coast
in great abundance. As the snow disappears from the low ground
about the 10th or 15th of May, and every pond, still covered with
ice, is bordered by a ring of water, these gentle birds arrive on the
tundras of the Yukon Delta and Norton Sound. By the end of the
month they are extremely numerous, and their gentleness and trust-
ing behavior render them very attractive. Among the many pretty
bird-romances going on at this time none is more charming than
the courtships of these delicate sandpipers. They forsake the borders
of icy pools and scatter in twos and threes over the tundra, choosing
dry knolls and tussock-covered areas. Here they trip daintily over
the moss, in and out among tufts of grass, never showing the pug-
nacity so common among some species at this time. The female
modestly avoids the male as he pays his homage by running to and
fro before her to show his tiny form to best advantage. At times
his heart beats high with pride and he trails his wings, elevates and
partly spreads his tail, and struts before his charmer with all the
pompous vanity of a pygmy turkey-cock. Again, filled with rapture,
the sanguine lover springs from the earth, rises ten or fifteen yards on
vibrating wings, and poising in mid-air hovers for nearly a minute
in the same spot, while he pours forth a series of musical trills that
vary in intensity and produce pleasant cadences. During this song
the performer's wings vibrate so rapidly they appear to keep time
with the trilling notes, which may be likened to the running down
of a small spring, producing a fine, high-pitched, buzzing or whir-
ring note. As the song ends the bird raises its wings high over its
back in a V-shaped form, and floats slowly to the ground, at the same
time uttering a deeper and richer, or more throaty, trill, ending as
the ground is reached. These sandpipers have also a variety of low,
happy, twittering notes, addressed by the male to the female, and
also heard when he is feeding. The females are usually devoted
mothers, and are often astonishingly fearless in staying by their eggs
or young when danger threatens, at the same time uttering low
plaintive notes of alarm.

39

Another of the tundra-loving waders, the pectoral sandpiper, in-
flates the loose skin of its throat and breast into a balloon-shaped bag,
and runs to and fro in front of the female while he utters a low,
musical, booming note; or he will fly up twenty or thirty yards into
the air and then float down on up-raised wings, sounding the same
note.

The little pools scattered abundantly over the tundra are fre-
quented in spring and summer by northern phalaropes, pretty,
graceful members of a family of small waders remarkable for revers-
ing, during the mating-season, all ordinary avian habits and cus-
toms. The female is larger and much more handsomely colored
than the male, and pays court to him in order to secure a mate, just
as does the male among other birds. As the season comes on when
the flames of bird-love mount high, the dully colored male of the
northern phalarope swims about the pools, apparently heedless of the
attending fair ones. Such stoical indifference is too much for some
of them to bear. A female in all her finery of nuptial plumage glides
close to him and bows her head in pretty submissiveness, but he turns
away, pecks at a bit of food and moves off; she follows, and he quick-
ens his speed, but in vain ; he is her choice, and she proudly arches her
neck and in mazy circles passes and repasses before the harassed
bachelor. He turns his breast first to one side and then to the other,
as if to escape, but there before him is his gentle wooer, ever
pressing her ardent suit. Frequently he takes flight to another part
of the pool, all to no purpose. If, with affected indifference, he
searches for food, she swims by his side, almost touching him, and at
intervals rises a foot or two above his back and makes half a
dozen quick wing-strokes, producing a rapid series of sharp whistling
notes. Time and importunity at length have their effect. The male
accepts a partner, and the female no longer needs to use her seductive
blandishments to draw his attention to her. About the first of June
the dry side of a knoll near some small pond sees four dark, hand-
somely marked eggs laid in a little hollow, sometimes without lining,
or with a few carelessly added grass-blades. Here the captive male
is introduced to new duties, and spends much of his time brooding
the eggs, while the female idles about the pool near by. The newly
hatched young are beautiful little balls of buff and brown.

The most musical notes among the ducks are those of the old-
squaw, a species common from the upper Yukon to the sea-coast.
During the mating-season the drake gives a series of deep, reed-like
notes, so melodious that Jack McQuesten and other fur-traders of

40

I i

the upper Yukon region aptly named it the organ duck. These notes
sound remarkably musical in the quiet twilight hours of the arctic
spring night. During his courtship the male old-squaw often swims
back and forth before the female, his long tail-feathers pointing up
at a steep angle and vibrating rapidly from side to side while he
utters his mellow notes at short intervals. If he becomes too pressing
in his suit the female dives, and is instantly followed by the male; a
moment later they appear on the surface, take wing, and a chase
ensues, the two plunging below the smooth surface of the water at
full speed, then reappearing in full flight some distance away, only to
repeat the performance again and again. Two or three males some-
times join in this playful pursuit of a female until she finally makes a
choice and retires to some secluded pool with her mate. During these
courtship-flights the males often continue uttering their love-notes,
and make a very pretty chorus.

The mating loons, ducks, geese, swans, cranes, waders, gulls,
and other birds, now present a bewildering variety of attractions
to the lover of wild life. Several species of geese are the most clam-
orous of all in their wild outcries. The harsh, rolling notes of the
cranes, and the raucous notes of the many red-throated, and of the
Pacific black-throated loons, add greatly to the general sense of wild-
ness on the tundras, especially when the cries of the loons break
the general stillness that covers the tundra during the twilight hours
of the northern summer night.

By the last of August, or during September, the birds have re-
gained their wing-feathers, the tundras are alive with them, and the
air resounds with the clatter of many geese calling. Ducks, geese,
curlews, and other birds, seek the dry, sunny slopes where ripe heath-
berries (Empetrum nigrum) abound at this time, and feed upon
them until they become extremely fat.

Back from the barrens that border the coast of Bering Sea and
the Arctic Ocean, much of the interior is overgrown with forests of
birches, spruces, and other subarctic trees. Small birds of many sorts
come to this wooded area each summer to rear their young; and sev-
eral of them, such as the intermediate white-crowned sparrow, the
western tree sparrow, and the fox sparrow, range down to the coast of
Bering Sea wherever little patches of stunted alders and willows
occur. This area, north to the limit of tree-growth, is enlivened
through the summer by the songs of the gray-cheeked thrush, the
robin, and the varied thrush. The white-bellied tree swallow, and
the bank swallow, share the interior with the barn swallow; the last-

41

named, however, comes to the coast, and appears as much at home
in a variety of northern conditions as it is under milder skies. Here,
as in the South, they take advantage of buildings for nesting sites,
gathering in abundance at the village of Unalaska, and at St. Michael,
where their neat forms and cheerful notes seem curiously strange
in so bleak surroundings. On the tundra, several miles southeast of
St. Michael, I found one spring an ancient Eskimo winter hut, half
underground, covered with a mound of earth that was falling in from
long disuse. As I approached it a barn swallow suddenly flew out,
and I found her nest with newly hatched young on one of the small
timbers supporting the roof. On the north shore of Kotzebue Sound,
opposite Chamisso Island, directly under the Arctic Circle, I found
another nest, built on a small ledge in a narrow vertical cleft in the
rock into which the waves of the Arctic Ocean swept freely back and
forth, only a few feet below.

Conspicuous among the land-birds of the interior also seen on the
coastal barrens is the willow ptarmigan. In spring the white feathers
on the head and neck of the male are replaced by brown, and a thin
fleshy comb, bright red in color and with a thin fringe on its upper
border, develops over each eye. These combs fold down and are over-
laid by the feathers on the side of the crown except when the bird is
excited, when they are raised and become conspicuous additions to
its nuptial adornment. After the mating-season these fleshy crests
fade, shrink, and become invisible until the approach of another
summer.

With the appearance of the brown feathers on the head and neck
in spring these birds become extremely active, noisy and pugnacious.
They are then the dominant form of life on the tundras until the
water-fowl have arrived in full force. The cock-ptarmigan seeks the
tops of slight elevations, and now and then springs on rapid wings
a few yards into the air, uttering a loud, harsh, cackling or crowing
note of challenge. Here and there on all sides other knolls are occu-
pied by hot-blooded rivals, one of which soon comes in swift flight,
with ruffled neck-feathers, to drive away the competitor for the favors
of the duller-colored females scattered inconspicuously about the
vicinity. The challenger sees the enemy coming like an animated
white ball, and flies a short distance to meet him in mid-air. They
often strike in full head-on collision, and feathers fly as the combat-
ants drop to the ground. The fight is then continued, sometimes on
the ground and sometimes in the air, in true "rough-and-tumble"
fashion until one has had enough. Then the vanquished one dashes

42

away in full flight, pursued for a time by the victor. He quickly re-
turns, however, and springing into the air from the original knoll
again sends out his cry of defiance to all comers. During the last
half of May along the coast of Bering Sea these ptarmigan are notice-
able everywhere, and the air is filled with their loud insistent notes.
A little later, when the mating is over and the females are hidden
away on nests, the males completely lose their boisterous pugnacity,
and are almost as quiet and inconspicuous as their mates.

Additional Notes by the Editor

A few explanatory notes, largely derived from Mr. Nelson's valu-
able and interesting Report, may be added to the foregoing lively ac-
count of the bird-life of the Alaskan tundras.

The loons of this district are of five different species, namely,
the widely distributed "common loon," or great northern diver ; the
yellow-billed ; the black-throated ; the Pacific ; and the red-throated
loon. They are distinguished chiefly by their varying colors about
the head and neck. In the common loon the black head and neck are
in summer deep black, crossed on the throat by a bar or by transverse
streaks of white; in the Pacific species the top of the head and the
hind neck are pale, smoky gray, the throat and fore neck glossed with
bronzy green or purple; in the black-throated loon the head and
neck are deep leaden gray above, and are glossed beneath with velvety
purple ; and in the red-throated the fore neck in summer is rich chest-
nut in color. This last is the smallest of the lot. The largest of the
loons is the yellow-billed, whose head and neck are glossed with
violet-blue. The habits, nests, and eggs of all are similar. The eggs
number two, and are of an elongated oval form, deep brown or olive
in tint, and sparsely speckled.

The black guillemot mentioned is a circumpolar species belong-
ing to the Arctic sea-front and islands, and rarely seen south of
Kotzebue Sound.

The jaegers, or skuas, as they are more often termed in the North-
Atlantic region, are wide-wandering oceanic gulls of predatory habits,
that get their living mainly by robbing their smaller brethren. They
are large, and exceedingly swift and powerful on the wing. The
Eskimos attribute to the parasitic jaeger remarkable prowess, and call
it "the cannibal" because, as they say, it formerly captured and ate
men. This jaeger is far more agile and bold than the pomarine, which
it will drive from its neighborhood ; but it is not so graceful in flight
as the long-tailed one. They harry the gulls and terns to make them
disgorge fish just caught, and then swoop down beneath the falling

43

morsel and snatch it with open mouth. The pomarine is confined in
summer to the most northern coasts, but the other two abound all
over the tundras and nearer Aleutian Islands, laying two, dark-green,
profusely spotted eggs on the bare ground. In summer they fly far
inland, catching field-mice and lemmings, robbing the nests of ducks
and other birds, searching the beaches and river-banks for dead fish,
and even eating berries.

The biggest of the Alaskan gulls is the glaucous, or "burgomas-
ter"— the first birds every year to reach the coasts that girt the polar
seas. "Their hoarse cries," Nelson tells us, "are welcome sounds to
the seal-hunter as he wanders over the ice-fields far out to sea
in early spring. They become more and more numerous until they
are very common. They wander restlessly along the coast until the
ponds open on the marshes near the sea, and then, about the last half
of May, they are found straying singly or in pairs about the marshy
ponds, where they seek their summer homes. Here they are among
the noisiest of the wildfowl."

Not all, however, go to the remote North, for the burgomasters
spread all over the coast-regions from the Aleutians northward, and
in June construct their nests on some islet in a marsh or pond, form-
ing a conspicuous hillock, two or more feet high, made of tufts of
grass and moss torn up near by, and heaped into a pile with a basin-
like hollow in the top where the eggs are deposited.

Its relative, the glaucous-winged gull, on the contrary, breeds
on "the faces of rugged cliffs, at whose bases the waves are continu-
ally breaking." Nelson's and the Bonaparte gull are rare in this dis-
trict, but the beautiful short-billed gull is to be seen in abundance in
summer, haunting the marshes far in the interior as well as near the
coast, as also is Sabine's gull, which forms nesting-colonies on islets
in the ponds scattered over the tundra.

Of the eiders three species are seen along the northern coasts of
Alaska — the spectacled, the Pacific, and the king eider. The first-
named has a very limited breeding-range, close to the coast, from the
Kuskokwim northward, and nests in colonies,- its homes hidden among
tussocks of marsh-grass. These eiders are very quiet and retiring
in their domestic life, but their flesh and skins are of so much value
to the Eskimos that they are killed in great numbers, and every
effort should be made to save them. The Pacific eider, which the
whalers at Point Barrow call canvasback , has a far broader breed-
ing-range. Nelson describes its nesting-place as "usually a dry spot
close to a small pond or tide-creek, and not often in close proximity

44

to the sea-shore;" and he remarks upon the contrast in habits be-
tween it and the spectacled eider, this species nesting in solitary
pairs, the other gregariously. The king eider resembles the Pacific
in nesting habits, and is said by Murdoch to be the most anundant
spring bird on the Arctic seaboard. Murdoch devotes much space
in his Report of the Expedition to Point Barrow to an account of the
manners of these ducks, and to their service to the people.

The red-backed sandpipers come to the tundras about the middle
of May, when the notes of the males "fall upon the ear like the mellow
tinkle of large water-drops falling rapidly into a partly filled vessel."

One may also see on the tundra the active buff-breasted sand-
piper, greenish black on the upper parts and yellowish buff below,
whose eggs are paler and much more distinctly spotted and streaked.
Murdoch writes of their pretty manners as follows :

A favorite trick is to walk along with one wing stretched to its fullest
extent and held high in the air. I have frequently seen solitary birds doing
this fcr their own amusement, when they had no spectators of their own kind.
Two will occasionally meet and spar like fighting-cocks for a few minutes,
and then rise together like "towering" birds, with legs hanging loose. .
A single bird will sometimes stretch himself up to his full length, spread his
wings forward, and puff out his throat, making a sort of clucking noise, while
one Ox" two others stand by, and apparently admire him.

Of the beautifully costumed turnstones two species are observ-
able, the common one and the black; the latter is by far the more
numerous of the two along the shore of Bering Sea, but seems never
to visit the Arctic coast, where the common turnstone is rare. Both
search for insects, etc., among the pebbles of the beaches, pushing
aside or turning over the stones to get at the little crustaceans and
other edible creatures hiding beneath them.

ALEUTIAN DISTRICT (D)

Mr. Nelson's account in this book of the birds of the northern
coasts, supplemented by Mr. Bent's biography of the Tufted Puffin,
leaves little that needs to be said in respect to the Aleutian Dis-
trict— that chain of lonely, volcanic, storm-swept islands which are
the half-submerged summits of the mighty Alaskan Mountains ex-
tended westward nearly to the Asiatic coast. Those quaint sea-fowl,
the puffins, auks, and guillemots, are the characteristic birds of the
coasts, wherever they are high and precipitous, and a picture of
their general characteristics is presented in Mr. Bent's paper on the
sea-parrot (page 49). The breeding-habits of all much resemble
those of the sea-parrot, yet vary with circumstances. On islands
where foxes abound, for example, their nests are placed on the highest

45

ledges, but elsewhere close to the water at the base of a cliff. Even
so the eggs of most species (especially of those, such as the paro-
quet auklet, that scatter in lonely pairs, not associating in colonies)
are difficult to obtain, because secreted far under the tumbled rocks,
out of reach of foxes, crows, and other enemies.

RED-FACED CORMORANTS ON WALRUS ISLAND IN BERING SEA
From a Photograph by A. C. Bent

Among gulls, the pomarines, and the parasitic jaegers are numer-
ous in summer ; and both of the kittiwakes, the burgomaster, and the
short-billed gull, are present all along the chain, breeding in thou-
sands on certain islands. Turner notes that the short-billed gull is
very fond of sea-urchins, for which it hunts at low tide; having
found one it carries it some distance into the air, then drops it on
the rocks to break it, so that it can get at the soft interior parts.
Both the arctic and the Aleutian terns occur in the western part of
the islands, but neither is plentiful.

Those oceanic wanderers the albatrosses, fulmars, and fork-tailed
petrels are rarely seen, but various cormorants breed on all the
principal islands. "The nest," says Turner, "is usually placed on a
ledge of some bold-faced rock, and in most instances about forty feet
above the sea." The eggs are laid early in June, and are pale blue
in color. Some of the crags are fairly covered with these birds, and
they look like black bottles standing in rows. They are caught or
otherwise killed in vast numbers by the Aleuts, for the sake of both

46

their flesh and their skins — or used to be, for now the natives have
less need of these natural provisions than formerly.

Land-birds of the Aleutian Chain

Fresh-water ducks are not numerous in summer along the Aleu-
tian chain, the green-winged teals being by far those most at home
there; and on certain islands they are surprisingly abundant. Turner
remarks of Amchitka Island in 1881 :

All along the little streams that were cutting deep into the earth, and
so narrow that the tall grass completely hid them for many yards of their
length, the teals were found walking along under such places, searching for
tender roots and insects. These streams are not long, as they are usually
the outlets of inland lakes, and their sides are prevented from widening by
the dense mass of grass-roots, so that their streams are deep and narrow.
As soon as the current has excavated beneath the roots of grass the stream
widens, and the banks thus form an overhanging shelf on each side. Under
these places the teals resort, so that it is difficult to find them.

Of the sea-ducks only the old-squaw, the Pacific eider, and the
surf scoter, breed numerously. Mr. Turner has given an interesting
sketch of the habits of the Aleutian eiders (S. v-nigra). He says that
they are constant residents among the islands, and especially numer-
ous in winter. They frequent the steep slopes heavily clothed with
rank grasses, such as wild rye, which grows in huge tussocks, among
which these birds hide their nests. "A slight depression is scratched
out; the eggs are placed on the ground, the down being used only
as a cover for the eggs when the parent is absent from the nest.
The eggs are never placed on the down. The down is plucked from
the breast for that purpose only, and increases in amount as the
increased complement of eggs demands a greater amount of covering.
. . . The female eider becomes very fat in the breeding-season.
This may in a measure compensate for the lack of down on her
breast. . . . The male eiders are at this season very poor and
lean." Eiders subsist on animal food only, and this they obtain by
diving to the bottoms of bays and coves. They are able to dive
deeply and to swim astonishing distances under water.

Of the shore-birds the red phalarope breeds on the extreme
western end of the chain ; the Aleutian sandpiper occurs sparingly in
summer but abundantly in winter; the western sandpiper is always
numerous on most of the islands ; the wandering tatler occasionally
seen ; the golden plover is rare ; the turnstone appears here and
there, singly and shyly; the black turnstone inhabits only the most
distant western islands ; and the black oyster-catcher breeds abun-
dantly as far as the chain extends toward Asia.

47

The rock ptarmigan, in several local races, alone represents the
grouse family in this district, and is distributed as follows : Nelson's
subspecies on Unalaska, Akutan and Qnimak islands; Turner's on
Atka and neighboring islands ; Townsend's on Kiska Island ; the Adak
on Adak Island ; and Evermann's on Attu Island. These races have
become differentiated from each other, and from the type, by their
isolation, each being subject to conditions of climate and food not felt
by the others.

Both the bald and golden eagles are commonly seen throughout
the long archipelago, and Peale's falcon, a variety of the duck hawk,
breeds commonly throughout the archipelago, building its nest like
the eagles on the sea-cliffs, almost always close to a colony of eiders,
whose young it seizes as dainties for its own. The commonest bird
of prey on these islands, as elsewhere in Alaska, is the short-eared
owl, from whose liver the Aleuts make a love-philter; the snowy owl
also breeds there but is rare. Ravens are numerous and busy every-
where, and are the scavengers of the villages, and Turner and other
historians relate many curious incidents of their intelligence and
impudent tameness.

48

,

TUFTED PUFFIN

Order— Pygopodes
Genus— Lunda

Family — Alcidae
Species — cirrhata

National Association of Audubon Societies.

TUFTED PUFFIN

Order— PYGOPODES Family— A LCI D^;

Genus — LUNDA Species — CIRRHATA

National Association of Audubon Societies

THE TUFTED PUFFIN

BY WILLIAM LEON DAWSON

To those who have been fortunate enough to visit some romantic
isle off the North Pacific shore these quaint fowls make an irresistible
appeal of interest. Sea-parrots and Jew ducks, the sailors call
them; and we should all be inclined to poke fun at them for their
outlandish head-gear if their behavior were not so dignified. For my
own part, I confess a positive affection for these droll Quakers.

It is difficult to exaggerate the gravity of these tranquil birds,
always absolutely silent, save that, when caught and harassed, they
may emit a low, hoarse groan. They spend much time standing
demurely at the entrances of their burrows, their little plumes, nod-
ding like tassels on so many caps.

Puffins, like other species of the auk family, spend the winter
upon the ocean, and are seen near land only when the buffeting of
some storm of unusual severity strews the sand with bodies of dead
and wounded. As spring advances, and the new summer coat of
plumage grows out, these birds acquire an extraordinary array of
ornaments and appendages. Males and females alike receive, in
place of dull black feathers, a white facial mask; and this is prolonged
behind from each side into long, waving feather-horns of a rich,
deep straw-color. The eyelid becomes a brilliant red ; and the great
red beak, always stout and strongly compressed, is further enlarged
at the base by a new set of horny plates of a dull oil-green or delicate
horn-color, which exactly matches the eyes in tint. The feet also
become bright vermilion, instead of a pale salmon.

A puffin's bill is so remarkable a creation that a glance at its
structure may not be out of place ; yet as to the necessity of this
powerful crushing organ we are ignorant. The bird is not a shallow-
water feeder, and so has no need to break bivalved shells to pieces.
Moreover, in the breeding-season it seems to subsist upon small
fish, which are as easily taken by the slender-billed murre. We
do know that the puffin's queer bill is wonderfully composed of
eighteen plates (with underlying membranes), and that of these six-
teen, including "rosettes, lamellae and selvedges," but chiefly the
olive-green basal plates, fall away at the end of the breeding-season.
Their place is taken partly by underlying feathered tracts, and partly
by an underlying horny plate colored deep brown ; and the breadth
of the bill is much reduced. At the same time the white facial mask

49

and its plumes disappear and the entire head becomes uniform black-
ish; the vermilion eyelids fade to a sickly salmon-color; and the irides,
if we may trust scanty observations, become pale bluish.

Nuptially costumed, the tufted puffins repair in June to the grassy,
sloping hillsides of the rocky islets where they make their summer
homes, and proceed to renovate the old nesting-burrows, or else to
dig new ones. They work intermittently at this. Dr. Leonard Stej-
neger noted that on the Cpmmander Islands in the early days of the
season the puffins spent only one day ashore in alternation with two
days at sea. It is probable that the birds seek and find their mates
during these "sea-days," for I have never seen anything like court-
ship on shore.

A steep slope of soil fronting upon the ocean is the favorite nest-
ing-site of the tufted puffin. Here tunnels are driven at random to a
depth of three or four feet, and so close together that once, on Erin,
one of the Olympiades, by placing a foot in the entrance of a burrow
and turning on my heel I was able to touch with my hands the en-
trances of twenty-five others, all apparently occupied. This may
have been an unusually populous section, but if we reckoned at half
that rate .an acre of ground would carry 2,700 burrows. Hard or
rocky soil is not shunned in prosperous colonies, but many efforts to
dig here are baffled. The top soil on precipitous clinging ledges may
be utilized also, and even crannies, crevices, and rock-hewn chambers.
Upon the Farallone Islands, off the coast of central California, these
birds have little opportunity for digging in the earth, and little neces-
sity for providing fresh burrows, for crevices and cubby-holes abound
— places that have served the purpose no doubt for ,many centuries.
Many eggs, and sitting birds as well, are visible there from the out-
side; while some of the sites are nothing more than the innermost
recesses of niches and caves occupied by murres. On the Farallones
there is fierce competition between these silent birds and the rabbits
which swarm over the rocks. I have seen impulsive bunnies that,
fleeing from fancied danger, and taking refuge in the first burrow at
hand, emerged more hastily than they went in. The tufted puffin is
a dangerous, as well as a determined foe, and a bite from that rugged
beak will cut to the bone.

Although equipped with so formidable a weapon, the birds, in
digging their burrows, appear to depend upon their feet. These are
provided with nails as sharp as tacks, and the "finish" of the nesting-
chamber usually exhibits a criss-cross pattern of fine lines made by
their scratching toes.

50

Long grass and dense thickets, as of salal, salmon-berry bushes,
or dwarf spruce, occasionally afford refuge to birds hard-pressed for
room. Here the puffin, starting from some exposed edge, drives a
tunnel through the matted vegetation and deposits its egg upon the
surface of the ground, in shade almost as intense as that afforded
by a roof of earth.

If a hillside colony is approached suddenly from shore, the stand-
ing population, presumably males, pitches downward to sea by a
common impulse; while the nest-occupants come out by twos and
threes and dozens as one walks across the earth honeycombed with
their burrows. Once a-wing, the puffin returns again and again to
satisfy his curiosity by flying in great circles out and back, or perhaps
around the nesting-islet, if it be a small one. There is something
very weird and funereal about the whole performance!

Later the puffins settle upon the surface of the water until the
sea is black with them. Each bird dives, if only for a moment, upon
the instant of alighting; and it may be that they find it difficult not
to do so. Rising also requires an effort, desperate if the sea is smooth,
but easier in proportion to the increasing strength of the wind. As
soon as the invader has left the nesting-colony or secreted himself
the puffins return rapidly to reclaim the cooling egg, or to take up
the sober vigil at the burrow's mouth. Each alights with uplifted
wings held well back; the wings are also lifted from time to time
as if to rest them, and they are spread as balancers whenever
the bird attempts to walk. Be the going ever so easy, the puffin shifts
about as gingerly as a slack-wire performer.

Only one egg is laid, dull white, with faint irregular lines of
brown and purplish. Because the nest-lining is usually of the scantiest,
only a few salal leaves or bits of grass, the egg is often so soiled by
contact with the earth as to pass for dingy brown.

The baby puffin is your true Puffin, and it is undoubtedly he who
gave this trivial name to the group. He is, indeed, a mere puff-ball,
for he is densely covered at birth with down at least an inch long,
and you could blow him away (Pouf!) if he were not so fat, and
anchored in a hole. The down is of a uniform dull slaty black, and
the only touch of color about this infant pin-cushion is a showing of
dull red near the middle of the otherwise black bill.

The tufted puffin enjoys the widesr breeding-range of any bird in
the North Pacific, except the pigeon guillemot ; and, although not so
thoroughly distributed as that species, it is undoubtedly far more

51

abundant. On the American side, it breeds as far south as the Santa
Barbara Islands, California, and as far north as Cape Lisburne, in
northwestern Alaska. It is, however, of comparatively rare occur-
rence in Arctic waters. On the Asiatic side, its breeding-range ex-
tends as far south as Japan ; while its center of abundance is generally
conceded to be the Aleutian Islands. Deposition of eggs occurs as
early as May 1 in southern California, and as late as August 1 in
northern latitudes; but fresh eggs may also be found somewhere
from June 1 to June 20 at any given point in its breeding-range.
Thus, on certain islets off the coast of Washington, I have found the
puffins punctual to a day, and deposition occurring with practical uni-
formity; whereas, on the Farallones, in 1911, there was a steady
increase in numbers from the 1st to the 28th of May, with a few
still to be heard from on June 3. The winter range of this species
comprises the open ocean, and the birds are occasionally driven shore-
ward along the Aleutian chain and the adjacent coasts.

From time immemorable, the natives of the North Pacific islands
have placed large dependence upon the puffins, both tufted and
horned, to supply both food and clothing. Advantage is taken of
the bird's inability to alter quickly its course of flight — your puffin
is no dodger — and large numbers are caught annually by means of
small nets mounted on poles — a sort of glorified butterfly-hunt. The
puffin-meat is not distasteful, as sea-birds go, although white men do
not care for it. More important to the native Aleutian is the uni-
formly tough skin which goes into the making of parkas, the famed
feather-coats of the North. These garments, each requiring the use
of from forty-five to fifty puffin skins, are made up feather-side in, and
are nearly impervious to cold.

With the natives we shall, of course, have to be very patient until
such times as they may be able to get other food, such as we our-
selves eat, instead of the flesh of "torporki" (The name for the puffin
in the Commander Islands) and garments made of good wool, instead
of the flimsy bird-skins. With the foreign born fishermen we shall
have to be very firm, reminding them that Uncle Sam is very unwill-
ing to see his guests assault the ancient rights of his feathered wards.

For ourselves, we need no excuse for our interest in these quaint
old-men-of-the-sea, the tufted puffins. Remote, unobtrusive though
they be, they belong to us to study, to protect, and to enjoy. A visit
paid to one of their breeding haunts is like a trip to fairyland, a real
and tangible bit of romance. Such a privilege, properly exercised, is
the inherent right of every American citizen, and should be safe-
guarded to our children for all time.

52

THE CRESTED AUKLET

BY CHARLES HASKINS TOWNSEND

This is a sea-bird of the far North, frequenting the coasts and
islands of Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean. We first got
acquainted with the crested auklets at the Pribilof Islands, where
they abound, and afterward saw them in Bering Strait, and above the
Arctic Circle at Kotzebue Sound. Later, in the fishery surveys by
the steamship Albatross, we saw them from Kadiak Island and the
Alaska Peninsula through the whole Aleutian Archipelago, and be-
yond it to the Commander Islands, off Kamchatka.

The bird is also found along the Kuril Islands, down as far as
Japan on the western side of the Pacific. Rich as our experiences
with the auklets were in many of these places, they did not prepare
us for what we were to see in the Shumagin Islands, south of the
Alaska Peninsula.

On the evening of August i, the Albatross came to anchor in
Yukon Harbor, at Big Koniuji Islands, of the Shumagin group. While
the ship was working her way into this wild and uninhabited bay
everyone noticed the increasing numbers of crested auklets. The far-
ther in we went the more numerous they became, until the captain
called me to the bridge to tell him what I could about them.

The birds were nearly all of the crested species, and were present
in myriads. The surface of the water was covered with them, and the
air was filled with them. Large, compact flocks launched themselves
into the air from the lofty cliffs, and careened toward the vessel with
great speed and whirring of wings. The crested auklets were here
more numerous than were the choochkies (least auklets) at St.
George, in the Pribilofs, celebrated as the center of abundance for that
species.

Twilight did not come until after nine o'clock, and during the long
evening the birds were amazingly active. Flocks of them continued
to come in rapid succession from the cliffs, many passing close to the
ship at high speed and swinging about the harbor. After the anchor
was dropped near the cliffs, a loud blast of the whistle made the auklets
still more abundant. The bird-legions came from the cliffs until the
misty air and water about the ship was alive with them.

These birds appeared to be nesting chiefly in crevices in the cliffs,
although they could be heard under the boulders near the beaches. We
did not stay long at Yukon Harbor, and I have always wanted to re-

53

visit the place, and get better acquainted with the metropolis of the
auklets. At the Pribilofs we found the birds apparently more abun-
dant under boulders near the beaches than in the high cliffs. In seeking
the nests of the crested auklets, and in fact the nests of any of the auk-
lets, one needs a tool not often used by the bird student — a crowbar.

To discover the nesting-localities is easy. One has but to walk
along the great ridges of volcanic stones thrown up by the sea. The
stones are rounded and sea-worn like pebbles, but they are gigantic
pebbles and cannot readily be moved. The auklets go far down
among them, perhaps three or four feet, and can be heard chattering
there during any part of the nesting-season.

A FAVORITE NESTING- PLACE OF AUKLETS ON THE

PRIBILOF ISLANDS
From a Photograph by Dr. Charles H. Townsend

The natives attempted to show us the nests. They lifted or rolled
the heavy rounded stones for half an hour, until there was a circle of
them around us waist high and fifteen feet in diameter. They worked
in the central depression, carrying or rolling stones until the task be-
came hopeless, and still the auklets were chattering underneath the
stones all about. Edward W. Nelson writes that on the northern
islands of Bering Sea, St. Matthew, St. Lawrence, and the Diomedes,
the eggs are sometimes deposited in exposed places, with little attempt
at concealment. One egg only is laid. It is white, in some cases
marked with a few dark blotches, and measures on the average 2.10
by 1.40 inches.

We found that a considerable part of the food of this and other
kinds of auklets, consisted of amphipod crustaceans, or beach-fleas, as
they are called, when found under bits of seaweed along the shore.

54

CRESTED AUKLET

Order— PYGO POD ES Family— ALCID.E

Genus — AETHIA Species— CRISTATELLA

National Association of Audubon Societies

CRESTED AUKLET

Order— PYGOPODES
Genus— AETHIA

Family— ALCID^:
Species — CRISTATELLA

These small crustaceans, less than a quarter of an inch in length, are
amazingly abundant in Alaskan waters, and, as a never-failing food-
supply, account for the surprising abundance of auklets of all kinds.

The native Aleuts eat auklets, just as they do most other kinds of
sea-birds, and capture them with nets that are like a large dip-net with
a long handle. The native hunter conceals himself at some point near
the beach or bluffs over which the birds are accustomed to fly close.
When a flock approaches the net is swung upward, and a skillful native
has little difficulty in catching two or three birds out of each flock that
passes. The Aleut people are true children of nature, and the greater
part of their food consists of the fishes, seals, and sea-birds found
along their shores. The misty and often stormy shores would be deso-
late indeed without the lively presence of auklets ; and we cannot help
wishing that they abounded in more southern latitudes, where their
charming ways could be better known. Some of nature's finest ex-
hibitions of bird-life, however, are arranged without reference to civil-
ized spectators.

The crested auklets arrive at the Pribilofs in May, and remain un-
til the winter ice begins to invest the islands, when they go farther
south. They are noisy in the breeding-season about their nests, but
are rather silent at other times.

While they take alarm and leave the cliffs when closely approach-
ed, they have more confidence when on the water, and do not readily
dive or take flight except to make way for the boat. About islands
where they are not specially abundant they may yet be as thick as
bees about some particular cliff, long rows of them standing lined up
on the rock-ledges, while others are coming and going. Sometimes
we saw them far off shore in flocks hundreds of yards in extent.
They are a plump, well-fed race, and appear to have plenty of time
for play, both in the air and on the water.

The crested auklet is a very distinct species, distinguished by its
much larger size from its nearest relatives, the whiskered and the
least auklets ; and by the differently shaped bill, and the presence of
a recurved crest, from the paroquet auklet. Moreover, the under-
parts are entirely dark in the crested auklet, but largely white in the
other three species.

Males and females are alike in plumage, which is sooty black
above, and brownish beneath ; but this obscure coloring is relieved
by the lively crest, the bright red of the beak, and the white, plume-
like feathers which extend downward and backward from the eye.

55

The white iris also contributes to the alert appearance of the bird's
head. The feet are bluish, with dark webs. That portion of the red
beak around the corner of the mouth is soft and flexible.

In length individual birds vary from eight and one-half to nine
inches.

The plumage in winter is the same a$ in the summer, but the
bill is markedly different. The crested auklet not only molts its
feathers like other birds, but sheds the red, horny plates about the
base of its beak after the breeding season.

The forward-curved crest of the auklet, resembling that of the
California quail, suggests the name sea-quail by which it is known
to English-speaking persons. The native name "kanooska" is of
Russian origin, and means "little captain."

The very young bird, whose appearance has not long been
known, is a ball of smoky down, in no way resembling its parents.
In the immature bird the frontal crest and white feathers beneath the
eye are wanting or but slightly developed, while the bill is much
smaller and dusky brown.

At the Pribilofs, it is no uncomon sight to see fur seals, sea-lions,
and many kind of sea-birds, including crested auklets, in great abun-
dance within a radius of fifty yards.

We need not concern ourselves, I think, about the preservation
of the auklets. They dwell among the high cliffs and boulder-strewn
beaches of a thousand uninhabited islands, and know how to stow
away their eggs so safely that neither natives nor blue foxes can get
them easily.

56

THE EMPEROR GOOSE

BY EDWARD W. NELSON

Among all the wild geese that make their summer home in the
far North — both in the Old and the New World — the emperor goose
is one of the least known and the most beautiful. Its snowy white
head, dusky throat, satiny gray body, on which each feather is marked
by a black crescent and white margin, and the brilliant orange
feet, make a strikingly handsome combination of colors. When the
males first arrive on their breeding-grounds in spring, the beauty of
their plumage is remarkable, but much of its satiny luster vanishes
as the season advances.

After careful examination I found the adult males and females
to be absolutely indistinguishable. A fine adult female, taken at the
Yukon Mouth on May 22, had its iris hazel ; lower mandible dark
horn-color, with a white spot on each side of the rami; membrane
about the nares livid-blue, upper surface of bill pale purplish or fleshy
white; edge of nail dark horn-color; rest of the nail white; inside of
mouth mottled black and white; feet and legs a bright, rich, orange-
yellow.

Although the breeding-range of the emperor goose covers parts
of two continents, yet it is perhaps more restricted in its territory
than any other northern species of goose. Its summer home lies
along the coasts on both sides of Bering Strait, but, as we know, the
vast majority of the race breed in Alaska, mainly on the islands of
the lower part of the Yukon Delta, and thence southward on the low
marshy tundras to Cape Vancouver and nearly to the mouth of the
Kuskokwim River. A few stragglers nest north of the mouth of the
Yukon. Considerable numbers also breed on St. Lawrence Island,
where I have seen many flocks in June. They also rear their young
on the shores of Chukchi Land, in extreme northeastern Asia. We
saw them coasting along the beach near East Cape on the Siberian
side of Bering Strait the first of July, and they must have -been breed-
ing in that district. When Nordenskiold wintered at Tapkan, on the
Arctic coast of Siberia northwest of Bering Strait, he noted the arrival
of these birds near his winter quarters as soon as the snow left the
tundra in spring. This is the most western record we have of them
in Siberia, but they no doubt range still farther. Their main winter-
ing place appears to be on the Pacific, or southern, side of the Penin-
sula of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Aleuts know them as
"beach geese," owing to their persistent occupation of the seashore.

57

Stray individuals wander far down the American coast in winter,
even to northern California, where several, mostly immature birds,
have been captured. They also go as far as the Hawaiian Islands, for
Henry W. Henshaw has recorded the capture of four on Hawaii,
where they arrived, with other stray visitors, after a severe October
gale, in 1902. On the coast of eastern Asia, we have records of them
as far south as Bering Island, the mouth of the Anadyr River, and
the coast of Kamchatka. On this coast, however, we do not know
of their presence in any large numbers.

While I was preparing to go to Alaska, more years ago than I
like to contemplate, the emperor goose, Steller's and Fischer's eiders,
and the Aleutian tern, were names to conjure with; and the anticipa-
tion of studying these birds in their remote northern homes filled me
with joy. In the North, my headquarters were at St. Michael, on
the coast of Bering Sea, about sixty miles north of the Yukon Delta.
Here emperor geese rarely occurred except in stray parties, visitors to
the marshy coast-plain in fall. I made a sledge-journey one winter
through the Yukon Delta and across the tundras southward to the
Kuskokwim, and found the Eskimos in that district wearing parkas,
or outer garments, made of the skins of emperor geese sewed toge-
ther ; and I heard that great numbers of these birds nested there each
spring. From what I learned, it appeared evident that they rarely
nested above the upper limit of the tide in the sluggish streams of
this low plain. All available observations of the habits of this bird
show it to be a strictly salt-water, coastal species, both in summer
and winter. Its food is sought between tide-lines either on oozy flats,
as at the Yukon mouth, or along the rocky beaches of the wild Aleu-
tian shores.

One spring, during my residence at St. Michael, it became possi-
ble to fulfil my long-cherished desire to visit the breeding-grounds of
these geese, and of many other water-fowl in the Yukon Delta. To
reach there in time to welcome the coming feathered host, I left St.
Michael early in May with an Eskimo and a dog-sledge. The tundra
was still clothed in winter white, except here and there a bare spot
on the sunny side of a knoll, and the sea was covered with unbroken
ice to the far horizon. The hoarse, crowing notes of the willow ptar-
migan were beginning to be heard on the tundra, and occasional
scouts from the coming army of white-fronted and cackling geese
passed high overhead, spying out the land ; yet the day I set out the
temperature was well below zero.

58

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At the border of the Yukon Delta, Eskimos familiar with the
country were employed to lead us to the desired nesting-ground of
the emperor goose. Nearly half a day's journey among the maze of
ice-covered channels of the delta brought us to a low, flat island,
where our guide assured me many nachau-thluk would soon arrive
to rear their young. It was a bare, desolate spot, with only a few
scattered alders on the upper side of the islands, and an unbroken
view out over the frozen sea to the west. A tent was put up on a
slight rise and, after a stock of drift-wood had been gathered, the
guides took the sledge and left me with my Eskimo companion to
await the arrival of the birds. Later, when the ice went out, they
returned for me with kyaks.

A few white-fronted and cackling geese gave noisy evidence of
their presence, but it was not until May 22 that the Eskimo brought
in the first emperor goose — a male in beautiful spring plumage. Af-
ter this small flocks came in rapidly until they were plentiful all
about us. They arrived quietly, skimming along near the ground
quite unlike the other geese, which appeared high overhead with wild
outbursts of clanging cries that were answered by those already on
the ground. The river-channels and the sea were still covered with
ice, and the tundra was half covered with snow, at the time of the
first arrivals.

At first, the emperor geese were difficult to approach, but as their
numbers increased they became less shy. When on the wing they
were easily distinguished from the other geese, even at considerable
distances, by their proportionately shorter necks and heavier bodies,
as well as by their short, rapid wing-strokes, resembling those of the
black brant. Like the latter, they usually flew near the ground,
rarely more than thirty yards high, and commonly so close ,to the
ground that their wing-tips almost touched the surface on the down
stroke. While flying from place to place, they give at short intervals
a harrh, strident call of two syllables, like kla-ha, kla-ha, kla-ha, en-
tirely different from the note of any other goose I have ever heard.
A group of them on a sand-bar or mud-flat often utter lower, more
cackling notes in a conversational tone, which may be raised to wel-
come new arrivals. They are much less noisy than either the white-
fronted or cackling geese, which often make the tundra resound with
their excited cries. Occasionally I could cause a passing flock to
leave its course and swing in close to my place of concealment by
imitating their flight-notes.

59

Almost at once after their arrival on the islands, the emperor
geese appeared to be mated, the males walking around the females,
swinging their heads and uttering low love-notes, and incoming flocks
quickly disintegrated into pairs which moved about together, though
often congregating with many others on flats and sand-bars. The
male was extremely jealous and pugnacious, however, and immedi-
ately resented the slightest approach of another toward his choice;
and this spirit was shown equally when an individual of another spe-
cies chanced to come near. When a pair were feeding, the male
moved about restlessly, constantly on the alert, and at the first alarm
the pair drew near each other, and just before taking wing uttered
a deep, ringing u-lugh, u-lugh; these, like the flight-notes, having a
peculiarly deep tone impossible to describe.

At low tide, as soon as the shore-ice disappeared, the broad mud-
flats along shore were thronged with them in pairs and groups num-
bering up to thirty or forty individuals. They were industriously
dabbling in the mud for food until satisfied, and then congregated on
bars, where they sat dozing in the sun or lazily arranging their
feathers. By lying flat on the ground and creeping cautiously forward
I repeatedly approached within thirty or forty yards of parties near
shore without their showing any uneasiness.

Early in June they began depositing eggs on the flat marshy
islands bordering the sea all along the middle and southern part of
the delta.

The nests were always most numerous in the marshes a short
distance back from the muddy feeding-grounds, but stray pairs were
found nesting here and there farther inland on the same tundra, with
the other species of geese and various other water-fowl. Near the
seashore, the eggs were frequently laid among the highest driftwood,
wave-torn scraps of driftwood lying along the highest tide-marks.
On June 5, a female was found on her eggs on a slight rise in the
general level. A small gray-bleached fragment of driftwood lay close
by. The goose must have lain with neck outstretched on the ground,
as I afterward found was their custom when approached, for the
Eskimo and I passed within a few feet on each side of her; but, in
scanning the ground for nesting birds, the general similarity in tint of
the bird and the obvious stick of driftwood had completely misled our
sweeping glances. We had gone about twenty steps beyond when
the goose uttered a loud alarm-note and flew swiftly away. The
ground was so absolutely bare of any cover that the three eggs on
which she had been sitting were plainly visible from where we stood.

60

They were lying in a slight depression without a trace of lining. The
same ruse misled us several times; but on every occasion the
parent betrayed her presence by a startled outcry and hasty departure
soon after we had passed her and our backs were presented. They
usually flew to a considerable distance, and showed little anxiety over
our visit to the nests. The nests I examined usually contained from
three to five eggs, but the full complement ranged up to eight. When
first laid the eggs are pure white, but soon become soiled. They
vary in shape from elongated oval to slightly pyriform, and are indis-
tinguishable in size and shape from those of the white-fronted goose.

As the egg-laying approaches completion, the parent lines the de-
pression in the ground with a soft, warm, bed of fine grass, leaves,
and feathers from her own breast. The males were rarely seen near
the nests, but usually gathered about the feeding-grounds with others
of their kind, where they were joined now and then by their mates.

The young are hatched in late June or early July, and are led
about by both parents until, in the last weeks of July, or the first of
August, the old birds molt their quill-feathers, and, like the still
unfledged young, become extremely helpless. At this time, myriads
of other geese are in the same condition ; and the Eskimos made a
practice of setting up long lines of strong fish-nets on the tundras
to form pound-traps, or enclosures with wide wings leading to them,
into which thousands were driven and killed for food. The slaughter
in this way was very great, for the young were killed at the same
time and thrown away in order to get them out of the way of the
next drive. The Eskimos of this region also gather large numbers
of eggs of the breeding water-fowl for food ; and, this practice, with
the demand for eggs at the mining-camps, has constituted a serious
menace to the existence of these and other water-fowl.

Fortunately, in 1909, President Roosevelt made a bird-reserva-
tion covering the delta of the Yukon and the tundra to the southward,
which includes the main breeding-ground of the emperor goose, and
thus took a long step toward perpetuating this fine bird.

61

THE HUDSONIAN CURLEW

BY A. C. BENT

A striking case of the survival of the fittest is seen when we com-
pare the relative abundance of the three common species of North
American curlews today with their status fifty years ago. Whereas,
at that time the Hudsonian Curlew was the rarest of the three, it is
now by far the commonest.

The reasons for the Hudsonian curlew's success in the struggle
for existence are not hard to find. Its breeding-grounds are in the
far North, where it is never disturbed ; it has no dangerous migration-
route; it does not, ordinarily, migrate in very large flocks, which are
susceptible to vicissitudes of weather and great slaughter at the
hands of gunners; but, above all, it is a shy, wary, wily bird, quite
capable of taking care of itself and well-fitted to survive. Like the
crow, it is more than a match for its enemies.

The Hudsonian curlew, Jack curlew, short-billed curlew, or
Jack, as it is called, has often been mistaken by gunners for one of
the other two species, and some confusion seems to have existed, in
regard to it, among the early writers on ornithology.

There are certain characters, however, by which this species may
be recognized at any age. The long-billed curlew is much larger,
the crown of its head is uniformly streaked, without any median
stripe, and its axillars have no distinct bars ; whereas the Hudsonian
has a dusky crown with a light median stripe, and its axillars are
distinctly barred with dusky. The Eskimo curlew may readily be
distinguished by its uniformly dusky primaries; whereas in the Hud-
sonian the primaries have distinct buff spots or partial bars on the
inner webs. The bristle-thighed curlew bears a close superficial
resemblance to the Hudsonian, but its primaries are like the Eskimo
curlew's, and its general coloration above, especially on the tail, is
much more rufous.

The Hudsonian curlew is widely distributed over nearly all of
North America and part of South America. Its breeding-range has
not been fully worked out, but it is known to breed on the Barren
Grounds of northern Mackenzie, and on the coast of Alaska from the
mouth of the Yukon to Kotzebue Sound. Its principal winter range
is on the Pacific Coast of South America from Ecuador to southern
Chile, where it is very abundant; it also winters from Lower Cali-
fornia to the coasts of Guatemala and southern Honduras; on the

62

Atlantic Coast its winter range extends from British Guiana to the
mouth of the Amazon River. Between these two ranges it migrates
over all the intervening regions, where it can find suitable country,
but mainly along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. On the Pacific
Coast the spring flight progresses slowly northward, reaches Alaska
about the middle of May, and arrives on the breeding-grounds in
northern Mackenzie by the end of May.

Very little seems to be known about the nesting-habits of the
Hudsonian curlew. Mr. MacFarlane found them breeding on the
treeless Arctic tundra near the mouth of the Anderson River, where
he took several sets of eggs late in June and early in July; the nests
were merely depressions in the ground lined with a few withered
leaves J. O. Stringer described a nest which he found on the lower
Mackenzie River as a pile of grass, moss, and weeds, on an island in
the river. Joseph Grinnell reported this species as breeding in the
Kowak Valley between June 14 and 20, 1899. The eggs vary in
color from a creamy drab to a brownish buff, and are more or less
heavily spotted with various shades of brown. The downy young
have apparently never been described, and nothing seems to be known
about the early plumage changes. Young birds in the fall can be dis-
tinguished from adults by their shorter bills and by the conspicuous
buff spots on the upper parts.

The Hudsonian curlew is more of a littoral species than either
of the others, and seems to prefer to frequent and feed on the sea-
coast. At low tide it resorts to the recently uncovered flats and
beaches, where it can pick up marine insects, worms, and small crus-
taceans.

Like most of the northern-breeding shore-birds, the Hudsonian
curlew moves off its breeding-grounds as soon as the young are able
to shift for themselves, and begins its summer wanderings, or starts
on its southward migration, early in July. The two main lines
of flight are down the east and west coasts of the continent, but a
more scattering flight passes through the central valleys and plains.
As with all the shore-birds, the early flights are composed almost en-
tirely of adult birds, and the flights of young birds follow, on an aver-
age, about a month later.

63

THE WILLOW PTARMIGAN

BY JOSEPH GRINNELL

The name ptarmigan is applied to several species and races of
grouse-like birds comprising the genus Lagopus. Lagopus means
"rabbit-foot," and refers to the chief character by which ptarmigans
are distinguished from other members of the grouse family, namely,
the heavy clothing of hair-like feathers which envelop the feet. In all
but one of the species remarkable changes of plumage occur twice a
year, and by the autumnal one a snow-white dress is acquired for the
winter season. This, and the fact that ptarmigans live in the far
north or on the tops of high mountains, where the climate is severe,
makes appropriate the name snow grouse, used commonly in Alaska.

North America has three .distinct species of ptarmigans. One
of them, the white-tailed, lives upon the snowy summits of the Rocky
Mountains as far south as northern New Mexico. The rock ptarmi-
gan inhabits mountainous country in the far north, and, as repre-
sented by various subspecies, is found from Greenland across the con-
tinent and on nearly every one of the long chain of Aleutian Islands.
The third American species, the willow ptarmigan, with which the
present essay is concerned, is most abundant on that level or rolling
arctic prairie-land, known as tundra, which lies between the forested
interior and the Arctic Coast. In western and northern Alaska, these
tundras are covered with a deep layer of moss and lichens. Here or
there in 'draws' or shallow valleys, are tracts of dwarf willow and
alder. In summer the tundras are boggy, and the many ponds and
connecting channels make traveling difficult. In winter they are
frozen solidly, and the wind-driven snow packs into the depressions
so that the surface is nearly smooth.

Save for black tail-feathers, almost completely concealed when
the bird is at rest, and the black of bill and eyes, the willow ptarmi-
gan in the winter is pure white. When the white feathers first appear
in the fall, they possess a perceptible, though faint, tinge of pink;
but this soon fades out.

The purely white winter dress is believed to make the birds so
inconspicuous against the white of the landscape that they many
times escape discovery by their enemies, the arctic fox and gyrfalcon,
as they certainly do by the human hunter. On a day when the sky is
overcast with dense haze, obscuring the direct rays of the sun, and
dispersing an intense, even light, the ptarmigans are extremely hard

64

to discern against the blank whiteness of their surroundings. Even
when fresh foot-prints in the snow and occasional calls told of their
near vicinity I have often found myself to be within but a few yards
of the birds before they would take flight with startling whirr of
wings and hoarse notes of alarm ; then, as one would alight at some
distance, it would seemingly vanish from the sight, not infrequently
defying rediscovery altogether.

On the occasional cloudless day, when the sun shines unob-
structed, even white objects are brought out in sharp relief by the
long, dark shadows cast upon the snow. If approached at right
angles to the rays from the sun, ptarmigans may then be discerned at
several hundred yards distance ; but they are then shy, for they have
a marvelous way of appearing to know whether or not the hunter is
actually aware of their exact whereabouts.

During the eight months of winter, the willow ptarmigans feed
upon the buds and tender terminal twigs of the dwarf alder and wil-
low, and virtually upon nothing else, save that quartz-gravel is reg-
ularly gathered from the river-bars where the wind bares the ground
of snow.

The willow ptarmigan is by nature gregarious. Especially is
this trait exhibited in the autumn months, when in the most northern
localities a partial migration proceeds a few hundred miles to the
south, or into great valleys where more food and better cover are
afforded, for the birds show a predilection for the vicinity of brush-
patches, or even of tracts of stunted spruce trees where these exist.
Not infrequently they escape from the dash of a falcon by taking
refuge in a bush among whose stems the snow rests lightly, and into
which the frightened bird is able to plunge quite out of sight.

In the early spring, long before the thaw begins in earnest, the
male ptarmigans begin to change to a rich chestnut-brown color on
the head and chest, and a bright red comb develops above each eye.
For a time, in April and early May, the males, with their deep brown
mantles and white bodies, are very conspicuous. They are then more
noisy than at any other season, uttering at frequent intervals until
late dusk a low, harsh cackle, roughly imitated in the Eskimo name,
a-kaze-rh-gak.

The male ptarmigans wear this special courting-plumage until
June, when another change, involving the whole body-plumage, leads
to a brown-black-and-buff plumage, which is worn until autumn. The
females, meanwhile, change rapidly in early May, about the time the
snow begins to disappear, to a mottled and barred black-and-brown

65

coloration. In this "summer protective" plumage the birds of both
sexes are as difficult to see against the green, brown, and gray of the
open tundra, as they were in winter plumage against the white
landscape.

All these remarkable changes in appearance are the result of
molts, by which feathers of one color fall out and new ones of a dif-
ferent color grow in. In the autumn exactly the same process leads
from the brown and mottled coloration of both old birds and young-
of-the-year to the pure white of winter dress. But while in the spring
molt the feathers of the head, neck, and back are the first to be re-
placed, in the fall these are the last tracts affected ; so that by the
middle of October birds are to be seen with dark feathers still pre-
dominating in the head and back. This, of course, gives much the
same effect as at an early stage of the spring molt.

The female ptarmigan selects the site for her nest during the
third week of May, and by the second week of June full sets of eggs
have been laid. The nest is a slight depression in the moss on the
open ground ; usually the summit of a hummock is selected, as being
a drier situation during the period of early summer rains. A scanty
lining of dry grasses in the nest keeps the eggs from actual contact
with the saturated moss of the foundation.

The full set of eggs numbers from eleven to thirteen. They are
very deeply and closely spotted and blotched with chestnut-brown,
the effect being to render them difficult to distinguish from their sur-
roundings, even when lying in plain view but a few feet from the
observer. The female bird does all of the sitting, and when ap-
proached on the nest does not take flight until almost trodden upon.
She then exhibits the greatest solicitude, tumbling about within a
few yards of the intruder in the most distressing manner. The male
bird sometimes appears, but keeps discreetly at a much greater dis-
tance.

After the eggs are hatched, the precocious youngsters are ac-
companied by both parents. They then have the faculty, so like that
of young quails and grouse, of concealing themselves at a moment's
notice, while the parents attempt to call the intruder's attention else-
where. The young are at first clothed with down, of yellow and
brown shades ; but before they are half-grown this is entirely replaced
by loose-textured feathers, and even before half-grown they are able
to fly as readily as the adults.

In summer, the willow ptarmigan's bill of fare includes many
sorts of insects, as well as green herbs. In the fall the abundant

66

crops of blueberries, heathberries, cranberries, and roseapples are
freely resorted to, and these fruits again become available the fol-
lowing spring, when the retreating snow leaves them exposed.

The reader will already have marveled at the special and useful
modifications in the habits and structure of the ptarmigan, which
enable it to carry on a successful existence under such extremes
in winter climate. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about the bird
is its alternating adaptations to the opposite conditions of the short
summer period. Not only is the summer plumage of a totally dif-
ferent general color, as already described, but it is much less dense
than the winter plumage. The molts, however, do not affect the
feathers of every part of the body. The wing and tail feathers are
changed only at the time of the fall molt which, in fact, is the only
complete molt. The feathers of the feet and legs are not replaced in
the spring; but, as summer advances, the old feathers become brittle
and wear off, until midsummer finds the birds with almost naked
feet — a heavy feathering at that season probably being not only need-
less but a hindrance, especially when wet.

The toe-nails in winter are so long as to project considerably be-
yond the generous feathering of the feet and toes. They probably
serve as "ice-creepers," of great use in walking or wallowing in crusty
snow. But the extraordinary thing is that in summer the toe-nails
drop off, or molt, new ones growing from the quick!

In winter plumage one set of feathers fails to conform to the
general whiteness — the tail-feathers. When the bird is at rest the
very long upper and under tail-coverts almost completely conceal
these black tail-feathers, which are then closed together in narrow
ranks; but when the bird takes flight, the tail is widely spread, and
a black "directive" marking flashes forth against the white back-
ground. In summer, the wing-feathers, left unmolted from the winter
dress, are unnoticed in the bird at rest; but, as the wings are spread
in flight, they furnish again a conspicuous "directive" pattern against
the dark landscape, the black tail-feathers being then ineffective.

The ptarmigans of the far northern frontier afford an even
more important game-resource than did the native birds in the early
days of the settlement of the States. The weight of a willow ptarmi-
gan is one and one-half pounds, so that each bird gives as much food
as four or five Bob-whites. It should be so cared for as to continue a
permanent game-resource in a country where the food-value of game-
birds is far more to be considered than any question of sport.

67

THE ALASKAN LONGSPUR

BY EDWARD W. NELSON

The Lapland longspur is a circumpolar bird, whose presence has
been recorded in summer from many points visited by explorers in
the treeless Arctic regions. It nests in Iceland, Greenland, and on a
majority of the islands of the icy sea north to 73 degrees of latitude,
as well as on the mainland. Owing probably to some climatic in-
fluence, the longspurs which breed west of the Mackenzie River, and
throughout Alaska, as well as on the Aleutian and other islands of
Bering Sea, are paler than those from the rest of the great range of
this species, and have been distinguished as a geographic subspecies
called the Alaska dongspur (Calcarius lapponicus alascensis). These
longspurs, however, are so nearly alike in appearance and habits
throughout their range that in the present sketch they have been
treated as one. In Alaska, they are extremely abundant and familiar
birds on virtually all of the treeless tundras or Arctic barrens. They
are perhaps most numerous on the mainland everywhere in suitable
places, but are also common on the islands of Bering Sea. They are
known in these northern haunts only in summer, when they breed
from Kadiak Island north to Point Barrow.

The males reach Dawson, on the upper Yukon, from the 5th to
18th of April, in nearly perfect breeding-plumage. There appears to
be no spring molt of these birds, but they obtain the breeding-dress
by the wearing away of the light edgings of the feathers of the
winter plumage. At the same time remaining parts of the feathers
appear to become brighter and richer, as if suffused with added
coloring-matter. There is considerable individual variation in color,
due to a greater or less intensity rather than to any change in pattern.

During the last days of April and first of May, they arrive at St.
Michael, on the coast of Bering Sea, and are known to reach southern
Greenland at about the same time. Murdoch tells us that they are
abundant in summer at Point Barrow, where they arrive about May
20; the first eggs are laid early in June, and the birds begin to
migrate southward the last of August or first of September. On the
western Aleutian Islands Ball found them to be abundant summer
residents, and discovered a nest with four much-incubated eggs on
June 18. They leave these islands in winter; and I may add that I do
not know of a winter record from any part of Alaska.

68

During the summer of 1881 I found them nesting on St. Law-
rence Island, in Bering Sea, and on both sides of Bering Strait, but I
saw no trace of them on Wrangel and Herald islands. They are
well known and abundant on the Fur Seal Islands, where they are
the most beautiful songsters among the limited number of land-birds
summering there. They winter through parts of central Europe and
middle Asia to Japan, and through the middle-northern United States,
mainly from the Great Lakes to Oregon and Washington, and some-
times extend as far south as Texas.

Early in May, the tundra on the Alaskan coast of Bering Sea
is still mostly covered with snow, except in grassy spots on southern
exposures and other favorably situated places. Here the first male
longspurs suddenly appear in all the beauty of their summer dress.
At this season, the males are beautiful birds, the head and breast
being jet-black with white or buffy stripes back of the eyes, the back
of the neck bright rufous, and the back streaked with black and
brownish. The females, as usually among birds, are more obscurely
marked, and reach the breeding-ground a little later than the males.
They arrive on the coast of Norton Sound in flocks and spread rapidly
over their breeding-ground. Despite the bleak surroundings and
chilling winds, they are soon abundant after the first arrivals, and
by the middle of May are in full song. As if conscious of their hand-
some appearance, the males choose the tops of projecting tussocks,
rocks, or the small knolls that alone break the monotonous surface,
where their bright colors render them conspicuous.

The Lapland longspur is one of the few birds, which, like the
skylark and the bobolink, are so filled with the ecstasy of life in spring
that they must rise into the air to pour forth their joy in singing.
The males are scattered here and there over the tundra on their
chosen projecting points, and at frequent intervals mount slowly
on tremulous wings ten or fifteen yards into the air. There they
pause a moment and then, with wings up-pointed, forming V-shaped
figures, they float gently back to their perches, uttering, as they sink,
their liquid notes, which fall in tinkling succession on the ear. It
is an exquisite, slightly jingling melody, with less power than but
slightly resembling the song of the bobolink. By the last of May
each eager songster has procured for himself a mate, and they build
a snug >st, well placed in the heart of a sheltering tussock or on a
dry knol1, in which are placed from four to seven eggs. During my
residence at St. Michael I examined many nests, and the number
might readily have been doubled. One could scarcely walk about the

69

tundra for half an hour during the proper season without finding from
one to half a dozen of them.

The nests are usually built in the driest parts of the tundra,
in a hummock, a tuft of grass, or perhaps a little bunch of dwarf
willow. As one comes upon it the female usually flutters off at one's
feet, and is immediately joined by the male. Both ho^ver about or
fly restlessly from tussock to tussock, uttering protests at the intruder
as long as he remains in the vicinity.

If the eggs are nearly ready to hatch the female shows the great-
est solicitude, and when the young have hatched her anxiety is
still more pronounced. In one instance the female was frightened
from her eggs just as they were about to hatch, and ran along the
ground a few yards uttering a plaintive chee-chee-chee in a fine, vibrat-
ing, metallic tone, at the same time dragging her outspread wings
and tail on the ground and fluttering as if in mortal agony.

The nests vary in size, but average about two and three-fourths
inches in depth by five inches across the top on the outside; the cen-
tral cavity is about two inches deep and three inches across the top.
The walls are sometimes thick and strong, composed of an abundance
of material, or may be a mere cup-shaped shell, barely sufficient to
hold the eggs. The majority of nests are composed of rather coarse
grass, sometimes with moss interwoven, forming a thick layer, which
was frequently found to be as thoroughly water-soaked as a wet
sponge. The amount of material used depends upon the situation ;
in damp places a much greater amount is made use of, while in dry
places the nests are much lighter. Though the outer part of the
nest is frequently formed of old and often grimy or partly decayed
vegetable matter, the interior invariably contains fine, soft, yellow
blades of last year's grasses. These, in many instances, are unmixed
with other materials, but are sometimes combined with feathers of
ptarmigan or other wildfowl. In a few cases the lining of the nests
examined by me consisted of a warm cup of feathers inclosed in fine
grass, and one had a thick lining of feathers and dog's hair. Some
nests are so small that they may be inclosed in the hand, while others
can scarcely be inclosed in both hands; one of the smallest nests
might be easily inserted in the cavity of a large one. The largest
nest I found contained the largest eggs, and probably belonged to an
unusually large bird. The eggs are heavily covered with blotches and
zigzag lines of various shades of brown, and the ground-color, when
visible, is a light clay with a pale greenish tinge.

70

The partly fledged birds, late in June or early in July, have the
feathers of the crown, back, rump, breast, and throat with black or
very dark-brown shaft-lines, which, on the breast and throat, are
narrowed to about one-third the width of the feather. On the crown
and back the black central markings occupy more than half the width.
The feathers of the crown are edged with a dingy, yellowish buff ;
those of the nape with grayish or dull ashy ; and of the back and rump
with a dingy yellowish gray or buffy. There are two indistinct white
wing-bars. The edges of the breast-feathers are yellowish, with a
wash of the same on the feathers of the entire under surface. This
state of plumage is scarcely attained before it begins to give place to
the fall and winter dress with which we are familiar, when the birds
come trooping down to the northern United States from the north
at the commencement of winter.

Beginning on the lower parts, the feathers are gradually molted
and replaced, the change extending slowly toward the bill. I am in-
clined to think that the molt commences about the tail and rump.
It begins late in July or early in August, at which time the old birds
are already far advanced in their autumnal change. Adult males were
found with nearly complete winter dress on July 22, and probably
some change even earlier than this. They usually begin to move
south before they have fully molted, so that only the comparatively
few individuals that have completed the molt in September are found
in perfect winter dress on their northern breeding-grounds. The
young are out on the wing sometimes as early as the 1st of July,
but more generally by the 10th of this month, from which time
they unite in small bands, most of them on the open plains, but many
frequenting the vicinity of the trading-posts and native villages.
They remain in great abundance until the last of August or first of
September, when they commence their straggling departure for the
South. While in the neighborhood of houses, they are extremely
heedless of the presence of people, and are nearly as familiar as are the
English sparrows in our cities. By the first of October, the last one
has passed away southward.

In winter and early spring the longspurs are very common over
the prairie-lands of the upper half of the Mississippi River Valley,
and thence west to Oregon and Washington.

71

INDEX

Auks and Auklets 1 1, 33, 45, 53

Birds from Siberia 27

Blackbird, Rusty 14, 22

Butcher Birds 25

Chickadee 37

Cormorants 12, 46

Crossbills 15,22

Crows 14

Curlews 62

Dipper 29

Ducks 12, 16, 29, 40, 47

Eagles 13,18,31

Eiders 44,47

Flycatchers 21,36

Geese 12, 16, 34

Goose, Emperor 57

Grebes 10

Grosbeak, Pine 22

Grouse 17, 30

Gulls and Jregers 11, 44, 46

Hawks 13, 18, 48

Hummingbird 20, 34

Jay, Canada 14, 21, 28

Kingfisher 14, 20

Kinglet, Golden-crowned 16

Longspur, Lapland 35, 36, 68

Loons 10, 43

Magpie 14

Nutcracker . . 14

Owls 13,19,31,37,48

Oyster-catcher 12, 47

Petrel, Fork-tailed 29

Phalaropes 40, 47

Phoebe 21

Plovers 27,39

Ptarmigans 17, 30, 42, 48, 64

Puffin, Tufted 49

Raven 14,22,31,48

Redpolls 23,34,35

Robins 25,36

Sandpipers 39, 40, 45

Sea-parrot 45

Shore-birds 12,17

Snowbirds 23, 24

Solitaire, Townsend's 25

Sparrows 15, 23, 24, 25, 33, 35, 41

Swallows 15,24,35,41

Swan, Whistling 17

Teals 27,47

Thrushes 16,25

Turnstones 36, 45, 47

Wagtail, Yellow 36

Warblers 15, 25, 35, 36

Water-fowl, chorus by 38, 41

Waxwing, Northern 24

Whisky Jack 21,27

Woodpeckers 20, 37

Wren, Aleutian . . .15,33

FEDERAL BIRD -RESERVATIONS IN ALASKA, AS
INDICATED ON THE MAP ON PAGE 9.

1. Chamisso Island. 2. Bering Sea (St. Matthew and Hull Islands). 3.
Pribilof Islands. 4. Yukon Delta. 5. Bogoslof Islands. 6. Aleutian Islands
(Unimak to Attu). 7. Tuxedni (Chisik and Egg Islands). 8. Fire Island
(for moose). 9. Hazy Island. 10. Forrester Island (including Wolf Rock).
11. Saint Lazaria (Sitka Sound). All these have been established by the
Government since 1909. The federal law relating to such Reservations says:
"Whoever shall hunt, trap, capture, willfully disturb, or kill any bird of any
kind whatever, or take the eggs of any such bird . . . except under such
rules and regulations as the Secretary of Agriculture may, from time to time,
prescribe, shall be fined not more than five rmndred dollars, or imprisoned not
more than six months, or both."

72

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