420 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
delta through the Kowak valley. My first acquaintance with this 
species was made on the 25th August, ’98, when two adults and 
two full-grown young were observed. They were silent save for 
a low, mellow call-note, and were feeding on the green alder seed- 
pods. I secured the two adults, which were in moulting plumage. 
In September and October pine grosbeaks were quite numerous, 
being often met with in companies of six to a dozen, immatures 
and adults together. They were usually among the scattering 
birch and spruce which line the low ridges. There, until the snow 
covered the ground, they fed on blue-berries, rose-apples and 
cranberries. During the winter their food was much the same as 
that of the redpolls—seeds and buds of birch,alder and willow,and 
sometimes tender spruce needles. In the severest winter weather 
they were not often in the spruce, but had then retired into the 
willow beds. The usual note is a clear whistle of three syllables. 
The native name Ki-u-tak represents it. Then there was a low, 
mellow, one-syllabled note uttered among members of a flock 
when alarmed. Twice I noted solitary males, when flying across 
the woods, singing a loud, rollicking warble, much like a purple 
finch. One morning, the 18th February, found me across the 
river skirting the willows in search of ptarmigan. Although it 
was 50 degrees below zero, a pine grosbeak, from the depths of a 
nearby thicket, suddenly burst forth in a rich melodious strain, 
something like our southern black-headed grosbeak. He con- 
tinued, though in a more subdued fashion, for several minutes. 
Such surroundings and conditions fora bird-song like this ! Again 
one day in March, during a heavy snow-storm, a bright red male 
sang similarly at intervals for nearly an hour, from an alder thicket 
near the cabin, and as summer approached their song was heard 
more and more frequently. Not until May 25th did I discover a 
nest. This was barely commenced, but on June 3rd, when I 
visited the locality again, the nest was completed and contained 
four fresh eggs. The female was incubating, and remained on the 
nest until nearly touched. The nest was eight feet above the 
ground on the lower horizontal branches of a small spruce grow- 
ing on the.side of a wooded ridge. * The nest was a shallow affair, 
very much like a tanager’s. It consisted of a loosely-laid plat- 
form of slender spruce twigs, on which rested a symmetrically- 
moulded saucer of fine, dry, round-stemmed grasses. Its depth 
was about one inch and internal diameter 3°25. The eggs are pale 
