trels—adventurous northern representatives of several great tropical 
families. The last two reside in extensive breeding-companies on the 
heights of St. Lazaria, where their young are hatched beneath the 
grass-roots in midsummer. 
With a mention of the white-breasted and the violet-green cor¬ 
morants, that breed in large numbers on the westernmost islands, we 
come to the end of the list of sea-birds, and turn to that of the fresh¬ 
water species. Many sea-birds, which used to nest numerously near 
Sitka, now are rare there, owing mainly, it is believed, to the de¬ 
struction of their eggs or young by crows and ravens. 
Ducks are not so numerous in this district as in the interior or 
on the tundras. Of the mergansers, the only one regularly seen is 
the red-breasted, the other being scarce. Mallards, green-winged 
teals, Barrow’s golden-eyes (whistlewings), the scaups, harlequins, 
buffleheads (butter-balls), and the scoters, appear to be the only 
ducks nesting at all frequently near the coast; and few except the 
pintail, scaup, old-squaw, scoters, and eiders, occur in winter. The 
white-winged scoter is the most abundant of the surf-ducks, and is 
numerous on salt water all through the year. 
The same may be said of the geese, the white-fronted and the 
white-cheeked alone nesting on the southern coast, while the snow- 
goose, Hutchins’s, and the cackling goose, the brant and some others, 
are occasionally seen in migrations or during the winter. The climate 
and other conditions are too unfavorable to induce or permit such 
wading-birds as herons, bitterns, rails, and gallinules, to dwell in any 
part of Alaska, except that the Pacific-coast variety of the great blue 
heron visits the southern part of the Territory. 
The situation is a little better for the shore-birds, which can 
pick up food along the margins of sheltered bays, especially west of 
the Copper River; but such of these as are seen in the course of a 
year are principally autumnal migrants. Only Wilson’s snipe, the 
Aleutian, Pribilof, and least sandpipers, the greater yellowlegs, and 
the wandering tattler, halt to rear their young south of the Yukon 
Valley. Nests of the black oyster-catchers, however, have been dis¬ 
covered near Prince William Sound. The northern phalarope is com¬ 
mon on salt water at all seasons. 
12 
