BIRDS OF KADIAK 225 



fulness of tone or melody. Next we found a magpie 

 a fine-plumaged saucy fellow in his coat of white and 

 burnished black, his long tail trailing after him as he flut- 

 tered about in the bushes. Much to our surprise the 

 magpie proved a common and characteristic bird. 



As we worked our way carefully through the masses 

 of devil's club, with its broad-spreading indented leaves 

 growing on a tall bare stalk, bristling with spines as sharp 

 as porcupine quills over or under fallen trees and 

 around the bogs we encountered now and then, we heard 

 the fine lisp of the western golden-crowned kinglet, the 

 chatter of the long-tailed chickadee and the sweet note 

 of the varied robin. The golden-crowned kinglet is a 

 beautiful little bird a tiny fellow with a plain gray breast 

 and an olive-green back; but of all wood creatures he is 

 the most perfectly crowned. Upon the top of his head is 

 a spot of flaming orange set in yellow and bordered with 

 bars of black, next to which, just over the eyes, are lines 

 of white. His little queen has a similar, though less bril- 

 liant crown, in which the orange flame is replaced by 

 yellow. 



After leaving Kadiak we had no opportunity of making 

 note of bird ways until we touched for an hour or two at 

 Sand Point on Popof Island, one of the Shumagin group. 

 We had passed well beyond the forested part of Alaska, 

 and were destined to see henceforth only grassy mountain 

 slopes and Arctic tundras, with dwarf alders, willows, and 

 birches nestling in the hollows. A goodly number of 

 birds were abroad on the morning we anchored off Sand 

 Point. From the ship's deck I heard the chatter of barn 

 swallows (which, by the way, were also abundant about 

 the village of Kadiak), the plaintive strain of the golden- 

 crowned sparrow, the simple ditty of the Aleutian song 

 sparrow, the sprightly song of the summer warbler, and 

 the harsh call of the magpie. The song of the dwarf 



