occurs along the open coasts of the Arctic and Bering seas merely 
as a straggler.” Joseph Grinnell, in his essay on the Birds of Kotze¬ 
bue Sound, gives an interesting note of his experience with this 
owl, from which I quote: 
In the spring of 1899 their arrival w'as noted on April 10th in the Yukon 
district of Alaska. At this date they were already paired, and a female secured 
contained large ova. On April 26th I located a pair of hawk owls which by 
their restlessness indicated a nesting site near by. The nest was finally 
found, but there were as yet no eggs. It was in the hollow end of a leaning 
dead spruce stub about 10 feet above the ground. The dry rotten chips in 
the bottom were modelled into a neatly rounded depression. The male bird 
was quite noisy often repeating a far-reaching rolling trill. Both birds fre¬ 
quently uttered a low whine, alternately answering one another. On May 8th, 
while snow-shoeing across the country toward the base of the Jade moun¬ 
tains, my attention was attracted by the distant trill of a hawk owl. 
I had given up hope of finding a nest and had started on, when, by mere 
chance, I happened to catch sight of a hole in a dead spruce fully 200 yards 
away. A close approach showed a sitting bird which afterwards proved 
to be the male. Its tail was protruding at least two inches from the hole, 
while the bird’s head was turned so that it was facing out over its back. 
When I tapped on the tree the bird left the nest, flew off about thirty yards, 
turned and made for my head like a shot. It planted itself with its full weight 
on to my skull, drawing blood from three claw-marks in my scalp. My hat 
was torn off and thrown twelve feet. All this the owl did with scarcely a 
stop in its headlong swoop. When as far on the other side the courageous 
bird made another dash and then another, before I had collected enough 
wits to get in a shot. The female which was evidently the bird I had first 
discovered on look-out duty then made her appearance, but was less vociferous. 
The nest contained three newly hatched young and six eggs in various ad¬ 
vanced stages of incubation. The downy young, although their eyes were 
still tightly closed and they were very feeble, uttered a continuous wheedling 
cry, especially if the tree were tapped or they were in any way jarred. This 
could he heard twenty feet away from the base of the tree. The nest cavity 
was evidently an enlarged woodpecker’s hole. 
Woodland Species 
The kingfi.shers, arriving early from the south in large numbers, 
frequent all the streams of the interior, digging nest-tunnels in their 
banks, and remaining until the freezing of the rivers compels them to 
betake themselves to less severe latitudes. 
Both hairy and downy woodpeckers abound, making their nest- 
holes by preference in the stubs and trunks of deciduous trees, yet 
occupying spruces whenever birches and poplars are not at hand. 
Two species of three-toed woodpeckers also breed in these forests, as 
also does the northern variety of the eastern flicker. Bishop says that 
these flickers are the most common of all woodpeckers about Fort 
Yukon. 
Whether the hummingbird of the coast (Sclasplionis ntfiis) ever 
crosses the mountains into the interior is not certaiidy known ; no 
doubt it does so now and then, as it appears to be a regular visitor to 
the head-valleys of the Yukon River. 
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