190' NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS IN ALASKA. 



soon as gaiued by the ordinary autumnal dress, which is well known in its southern range. In 

 spring adults the intensity of coloration on the back differs considerably, being much darker in 

 some than in others. At what point in the north leucophrys is replaced by intermedia cannot be 

 told at present, since the comparatively recent separation of intermedia from the easte'rn bird has 

 complicated the matter, rendering it uncertain to which form each author has referred. That 

 leucoplinjs occupies the northeastern part of British America and thence into Greenland is proba- 

 ble, but appai'ently it does not occur to the north and west of Great Slave Lake. It is a strange 

 fact that Z. albicollis is not known from the Upper Yukon region, Richardson having found them 

 in the breeding season north to the sixty-sixth degree along the Mackenzie. In the vicinity of 

 Great Slave Lake this bird and intermedia are found together, bnt the latter is the most numerous 

 and soon wholly replaces albicollis to the north of this point. 



ZoNOTRiCHiA (;oRONATA (Pall.). Golden-crowued Sparrow. 



During the Russian- American Telegraph Expedition our knowledge of the northern range of 

 this bird was considerably extended. Numerous examples were secured at various jjlaces in British 

 Columbia, Sitka, Kadiak, and at Kenai, where it breeds; thence north to the Lower Yukon and 

 Norton Sound it is a frequent summer resident, penetrating even beyond to the Arctic Circle, in 

 the Kotzebue Sound region, where, however, it is much less common. It was taken on Kadiak 

 l!*land and on the Shumagins in July by Bean. The last of May, from the 25th to oOth, it arrives 

 in the vicinity of Saint Michaels, and breeds sparingly all along the Bering Sea coast of the 

 Territory, and more rarely on the shores of Kotzebue Sound. From the peninsula of Aliaska 

 south to Puget Sound it is a common summer resident. I obtained partly-fledged young of the 

 year at Saint Michaels, and numbers of specimens were brought me from still farther north 

 about the head of Norton Bay; like Heaperocichla nccvia, it extends its range across to Kotzebue 

 Sound, within the Arctic Circle. It is found at Saint Michaels usually from May 25 to the 15th 

 of August, about which latter time it passes south with the young, which now ai-e assuming their 

 autumn plumage. While moving south it conies fearlessly about the houses for food, with troops 

 of other sparrows, and is not so shy as in the spring. Its breeding ground is in the alder-patches 

 along the hill-sides, where the various bush-loving species make their homes in the matted thickets, 

 well protected from birds of prey and most other foes by an almost impenetrable wall of gnarled 

 and twisted branches. On the Shnmagin Islands, just south of the Aliaskan Peninsula, it is com- 

 mon and breeds; but west of this, on the Aleutian chain — as upon the various other islands in 

 Bering Sea — it is unknown, its absence being easily accounted for by the bare and unattractive 

 character of these islands. 



Spizella monticola ocHtfACEA Brewst. Western Tree-sparrow. 



Of the variolas species of sparrows which frequent the bushes in the north, especially along 

 the coast of Bering Sea, the present bird is the most numerous. It arrives at Saint Michaels eai'ly 

 in May and remains nntil the 15th of September, sometimes even later. 



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 they 

 assume the duties of the season. In the course of time the nests are made; the young are hatched 

 and become fully fledged early in July. Toward the last of this month — sometimes by the mid- 

 dle — the young and old come trooping back to the vicinity of the houses again ready to feast with 

 numbers of their fellows in a motley crowd among the weed patches and in the garden plot. 

 They are extremely heedless and familiar at this season, like the various other species with which 

 they associate. During 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 

 of the ordinary winter dress, thus exjiosing the deeper and more decided tint below. The crown 



