588 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



is rather common, and specimens were brought to me from Nulato 

 and Fort ReUance on the Yukon ; the only examples we have (from 

 Alaska) of the waxwing's nest and eggs were taken by Kennicott 

 at Fort Reliance, Yukon, on 4th July, 1861. (Nelson.) This bird 

 is only an occasional visitor to the coast; specimens were obtained 

 from Nulato and Fort Yukon. (Turner.) We saw several on 

 Six-mile river, July ist; two at Lake Marsh, July 7th; one on 

 Fifty-mile river, July loth; two pairs at Miles canon, July nth; 

 and later they were seen in pairs and families at many points on the 

 Yukon to near Circle City; the last were seen August 12th; the 

 birds that we collected had been feeding on the purple berries of 

 some unidentified plant. (Bishop.) 



The plant referred to above was likely the bog blueberry (Vac- 

 cinium uliginosum) which was abundant on mossy slopes and sphag- 

 num flats between Dawson and Selkirk. Berries ripe at Dawson, 

 lat. 64° 15', July loth, 1902. (Macoun.) 



Breeding Notes. — Breeding from 1 50-Mile House northward ; 

 I arrived at Quesnel too late for eggs, but kept a sharp lookout 

 for waxwings the following spring at 1 50-Mile House ; I first noticed 

 them there on nth June, when I came across a small flock and shot 

 one which proved on dissection to be a female about to lay. On 

 returning to the same spot I found the waxwings, consisting of a 

 colony of five pairs of birds, still there, and soon discovered a nest 

 in a Murray pine, near the end of a limb and about 25 feet up; this 

 then (12th June) contained two eggs; on the 15th I took this set, 

 which then consisted of four eggs ; the nest was loose and bulky, 

 composed of Usnea moss, dry grass and weed stems, and lined with 

 fine material, with a few green aspen leaves in the lining, no doubt to 

 render the eggs less conspicuous ; on the 26th June I carefully looked 

 over all the trees in the neighbourhood with my binocular, and 

 found three more nests, all in tall Douglas fir trees; two of these I 

 was able to climb to ; each contained four eggs within a few days of 

 hatching; the nests were similar to the first but without the green 

 aspen leaves, probably due to the fact that the nests were better 

 concealed from above; I was unable to reach the fourth nest, nor 

 could I find that of the remaining pair of birds. (Brooks.) Early 

 in June, 1893, I saw and heard this bird chattering in the woods on 

 the slopes of Squaw mountain at Banff in the Rockies; my guide 



