212 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



tlie sliell at the expiration of twenty or twenty-two days' incubation, 

 the labor of which is not shared by the male. He, liowever, brings 

 food to his mate, singing as most birds do of his kind, highly elated 

 by the prospects of paternity. The chicks at first are sparsely cov- 

 ered with a sprinkling of dark-gray downi, and in two or three weeks 

 gain their feathers, fitting them for flight, though they do not acquire 

 the ash and black of the head, while the chocolate-brown on the back 

 is rich, and the rosy tints of their feather tips turn to crimson. These 

 bright hues of adolescence do not appear until they are 1 year old. 

 Between the old birds, however, there is no outward dissimilarity in 

 size or coloration, the male and female being exactly alike. They 

 feed upon various seeds and insects, as well as the larvse which 

 swarm on the killing grounds. They are fearless and confiding, flut- 

 tering in the most familiar manner around the village huts. In the 

 summer of 1873 a pair built their nest and reared a brood under the 

 eaves of the old Greek church, that tottered on its rotten foundations, 

 at St. George. It has no song, but utters a low mellow chirp, sound- 

 ing this note both flying and sitting, in the same cadence. It seems 

 to" pair off altogether and never reassembles in flocks. I secured a 

 large number of beautiful specimens of the adults of both sexes in 

 neat breeding attire, and others illustrating the earliest plumage of 

 the 3^oung. 

 4. Plectrophanes nivalis. Snow Bunting; "Snaguiskie."' 



The snowbird is another permanent resident of these islands, but 

 one which, unlike the pahtoshkie, you will notice, is very shy and 

 retiring, nesting high on the rocky, broken uplands, never coming 

 down to the village, except during unusually severe or protracted 

 cold weather. This bird builds an elegant and elaborate nest of soft, 

 dry moss and grass, and lines it warmly again with a thick bed of 

 feathers. It is placed on the ground, beneath some heavy lava shelf 

 or at the foot of an enormous bowlder. Five eggs are usually laid, 

 about the 1st of June. They are an inch long by two-thirds broad, of 

 a grayish or greenish white, spotted sometimes all over, sometimes at 

 or around the larger end only, with various shades of rich dark brown, 

 purplish brown, and paler neutral tints. Sometimes the whole surface 

 is quite closely clouded with diffuse reddish-brown markings. Upon 

 the female the entire labor of the three weeks' incubation required 

 for the hatching of her brood devolves. During this period the male 

 is assiduous in bringing food, and at frequent intervals sings his sim- 

 ple but sweet song, rising, as he begins it, high up in the air, as the 

 skylark does, and at the end of the strain drops suddenly to the ground 

 again. The young are early provided with a gray, downy coating, 

 which is speedily replaced by one resembling that of the adult female, 

 and in less than'^f our weeks from the date of hatching the little "sna- 

 guiskie " is as big as its parents and weighs more. The food of this spe- 

 cies consists of the various seeds and insects peculiar to the rough 

 higher grounds it frequents, being especially fond of the small coleop- 

 terous beetles found on the island. It never flies about the rocks 

 here, and can not be called at any season of the year gregarious, like 

 its immediate relative, the Lapland longspur, with which it is associ- 

 ated on these seagirt islets. 



5. Plectrophanes lapponicus. Lapland Longspur; *' Karesch-navie sna- 

 guiskie." 

 This bird is the vocalist par excellence of the Pribilof group, sing- 

 ing all through the month of June in the most exquisite manner, rising 



