86 NORTH AMERICAN BUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS. 



Eggs were found at Nulato, Alaska, May 21, somewhat later at the 

 mouth of the Yukon, and about the 1st of Jane in northern Alaska. 

 The last egg of a set found on Winter Island, Melville Peninsula, was 

 laid June 9, 1822. 



l^all migration. — A fine set of records of the arrival of this species 

 in the fall at Alexandria, Va., gives November 6 as the average date 

 for sixteen jxars, and the birds became common b}^ November 22; the 

 earliest date was October 15, 1901. Near Baltimore, Md., an unusu- 

 all}^ early bird was seen September 26, 1893. The northern part of 

 Alaska is deserted in early September, and the southern part a month 

 later; few individuals arrive at their winter quarters on the Pacific 

 coast before Novembe'r. 



Olor buccinator (Rich.)- Trumpeter Swan. 



Breeding range. — The principal summer home of this swan is in the 

 interior of North America from the western shore of Hudson Bay to 

 the Rocky Mountains, and from about latitude 60^ to the Arctic Ocean. 

 In early times it probabl}^ bred south to Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, 

 Nebraska, Montana, and Idaho; it nested in Iowa as late as 1871; in 

 Idaho in 1877; in Minnesota in 1886, and in North Dakota probably 

 for a few years later. It is not probable that at the present time the 

 trumpeter nests anywhere in the United States, and even in Alberta 

 no nests seem to have been found later than 1891. The vast wilder- 

 ness of but a generation ago is now crossed by railroads and thickly 

 dotted Avith farms. The species is supposed still to breed in the 

 interior of British Columbia at about latitude 53*^. The eggs have 

 been taken at Fort Yukon, and this is the westernmost record of the 

 species. 



Winter range. — As the summer home of the trumpeter swan is in 

 the interior, so also is the wintei* home. The species is not rare south 

 to Texas and remains as far north as it can find open water, sometimes 

 a . far as southern Illinois and southern Indiana. During its migrations 

 it occasionally^ stra3^s to the Atlantic slope (Lincoln, Del., November 9, 

 1886; Cayuga Lake; Buffalo). Throughout the western mountains of 

 the United States south to Colorado, it is hardly to be considered more 

 than a rare straggler, liut on the Pacific coast it is not uncommon in 

 winter from southern British Columbia to southern California (Los 

 Angeles County). 



Spring migration. — Early writers on the movements of this species 

 in the northern interior of Canada agree in considering it one of the 

 earliest migrants, arriving before the geese and next after the bald 

 eagle, which is the first spring bird in that region. It is reported to 

 have been seen at Fort Carlton, latitude 52°, March 30. There are no 

 United States records that corroborate this view; the first arrive in 



