BIRDS OF THE YUKON REGION, WITH NOTES ON OTHER 



SPECIES. 



By Louis B. Bishop, M. D. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



In preparing the ornithological part of this report I have thought 

 it advisable to note as far as possible all species met with from the 

 time we passed Dixon Entrance, northward bound, May 28, until we 

 reached Cape Scott on the return trip, October 12, for the reason that 

 articles on Alaska birds are not yet so numerous as to make such notes 

 worthless. It was of course impossible to obtain specimens of water- 

 fowl seen from the decks of steamers; therefore when specific identifi- 

 cation was not positive I have referred genera seen to the species 

 which previous observers — especially E. W. Nelson and William 

 Palmer — have found most common in the waters visited. 



Nowhere did we see the vast colonies of water birds which others 

 have met with in Alaskan waters, probably because most of these 

 birds had left their summer homes in Bering Sea when we passed in 

 October; but various migrants were common in the Inside Passage in 

 May, geese and ducks on the Lower Yukon in August, and waterfowl 

 of many species in Akutan Pass in October. 



The region from Skagway, at the head of Lynn Canal, to Circle, on 

 the Yukon, was the scene of most of our work; and as very little was 

 known of it ornithologically I have mentioned in my annotated list 

 every occasion of our observation of all except the commonest species. 

 Ornithologists, in referring to the Upper Yukon, include, as a rule, 

 only that part of the river which lies between Dawson and Nulato; 

 hence the avifauna of its head waters was with us largely a matter of 

 conjecture. George G. CantwelP mentions species he saw about the 

 lakes; but his experience was in many ways so difi'erent from ours that, 

 while crediting him with the first records for species which we also 

 found, I have omitted others which we did not find and for which he 

 may have mistaken closely allied birds. 



The country we traversed between Skagway and Circle divides itself 

 into three quite distinct faunal districts. The coast of Southeast 

 Alaska belongs to the 'Sitkan district' of Nelson, White Pass Summit 



1 Birds of the Yukon Trail <Osprey, III, 25, Oct., 1898. 



47 



