370 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The eggs in the Thayer collection are ovate, with hardly any gloss. 

 The ground color is pure white and is finely speckled, more thickly 

 around the larger end, with small dots of reddish brown. 



The measurements of 31 eggs average 16.3 by 12.1 millimeters; the 

 eggs showing the four extremes measure 17.3 by 12.7, 16.5 by 13.2, 

 and 15.0 by 11.0 millimeters. 



Voice. — Mr. Murie (1928) says: "The characteristic call of this 

 Chickadee generally consisted of two notes, which I described variously 

 in my field notes as 'dee-deer,' *chee-ee,' or 'pee-vee,' with emphasis on 

 each syllable and a tone and accent which seemed to imply a peevish 

 or complaining state of mind. Nelson describes it as 'pistee-tce, uttered 

 in a hissing tone.' I imagined this call differed from that of the Hud- 

 sonian Chickadee, but in the absence of the latter for comparison at the 

 time I cannot rely too greatly on this impression." 



Field marks. — The Alaska chickadee most closely resembles the Hud- 

 sonian chickadee, but it is slightly larger, its general coloration is 

 paler, its crown is grayer, less brownish, the sides of its neck are white 

 instead of gray, and it lacks the rich-brown flanks of hudsonicus, the 

 latter being paler and grayer. It can be distinguished from any race 

 of the black-capped chickadee by the gray instead of the black crown 

 and by the absence of white edgings on the tail feathers. 



So little is known about our Alaskan subspecies that it seems worth- 

 while to include the following notes on the European race, kindly con- 

 tributed by B. W. Tucker: "In the forest belt of Arctic Europe the 

 Lapptit (Panis clnctus cin-ctus), the racial representative of the Alaska 

 chickadee in that region, is one of the characteristic small birds. It has 

 been described as more characteristic of the pine forest than of the 

 birch and alder, but in Finnish and Norwegian Lapland I found it 

 chiefly among birch or mixed birch and pine on the borders of the pine 

 forest proper. In habits this species does not dilifer from the black- 

 capped tits. In the latter part of June I found it chiefly in family parties 

 of parents and fledged young, the latter in one or two cases still being 

 fed by the old birds, but I also found a pair still feeding young in the 

 nest on June 21. The nest in question was in an old woodpecker hole 

 at about eye level in a dead pine trunk on the edge of a svv'amp, wood- 

 pecker holes being, it is stated, the favorite nesting site of this tit. 

 Whether it will also excavate its own hole, like some of its allies, seems 

 not to be recorded. 



"The common note of the Lapptit may be represented as a low- 

 pitched, grating tchaa-tchaa or tsaa-tzaa, in which the a sound must be 

 given a pronounced nasal quality, as in Hvang, but more exaggerated. 

 It is often quite indistinguishable to my ear from the typical note of the 



