542 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part i 



the birds hop around on bare places on the ground. Todd quotes 

 notes of G. M. Sutton for Jan. 20 and 27, 1923, stating that the 

 birds "also drank from the stream. When feeding unmolested, they 

 were nearly silent, but they broke out into chirping before flying 

 away. * * * They swung about erratically through the air, appar- 

 ently without any particular object or destination in view. * * * 

 Masses of them would leave one feeding ground for another and 

 progress in a constant stream along the steep, hemlock-covered slope. 

 They were not particularly wild, nor were they (as literature had led 

 me to believe) especially tame." 



Aretas A. Saunders (1921) mentions a male and three females taken 

 at Miles City, Mont., on Nov. 16, 1919, which "were in a draw among 

 wild rose bushes and Spanish bayonet, three-quarters of a mile from 

 the nearest trees and twelve miles from the nearest pines." 



T. S. Roberts (1932) records an observation of three birds "out on 

 the prairie in high weeds" in the last week of October 1908. He also 

 refers to birds seen feeding in weeds by the roadside on Nov. 7, 1919. 



Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of the wanderings of this 

 species is a bird picked up dead at Demarcation Point, Alaska, in 

 January 1937, recorded by Laurence M. Huey (1938). The bird was 

 taken to Charles D. Brower of Barrow, Alaska, who verbally confirmed 

 the identification to Huey, who comments on "the peculiar phenome- 

 non of the bird's wandering such a great distance from the coniferous 

 forest belt, and ending its journey of life on the tundra so far within 

 the Arctic Circle in the dead of winter!" 



Distribution 



Range. — Alaska, Mackenzie, Labrador, Scandinavia, Russia, and 

 central Siberia south to northern United States, England, Italy, and 

 southern Siberia. (An isolated subspecies is resident in Hispaniola.) 



Breeding range. — Breeds, and is largely resident, from north-central 

 Alaska (Kobuk River, Fort Yukon), central Yukon (Bern Creek, 

 McMillan River), central Mackenzie (Fort Wrigley, Fort Rae, Thelon 

 River), central Manitoba (Grand Rapids), northern Ontario (Fort 

 Severn, Fort Albany, Moose Factory), northern Quebec (Paul Bay, 

 central Ungava), central Labrador (Okak, Hopedale), and Newfound- 

 land south to south central Alaska (Palmer, McCarthy), northern and 

 interior British Columbia (Flood Glacier, Indianpoint Lake, Monashee 

 Pass), central Alberta (Stony Plain), northern Minnesota (Lake and 

 Cook counties), northern Wisconsin (Kelley Brook), northern Michi- 

 gan (Escanaba), southern Ontario (Michipicoten River, Head Lake), 

 southern Quebec (Mount Orford), southern New Brunswick (Grand 

 Manan), and Nova Scotia (Bari'ington, Halifax); reported breeding 



