birds are busily engaged in feeding upon the buds. “They pay no 
heed to a passing party of sleds except, perhaps, that an individual 
will fly down to some convenient bush, whence he curiously examines 
the strange procession, and then, his curiosity satisfied or confidence 
restored, back he goes to his companions and continues his feeding. 
When fired at they utter chirps of alarm, and call to each other with 
a long, sweet note, something similar to that of the goldfinch.” 
Equally abundant all the year round are the two redpolls—both 
the hoary redpoll and the common “linnet.” They are alike in range 
and habits, and in July come trooping about, young and old, in large 
parties, with great confidence and a peculiar pertness, taking posses¬ 
sion of the premises and using the roofs and fences for convenient 
perches. “On warm sunshiny days during April they come familiarly 
up to the very windows and doors, and peer about with an odd mix¬ 
ture of confidence and curiosity, examining everything, and scarcely 
deigning to move aside as the people pass back and forth. By the 
8th of June their young are frequently hatched, and by the 1st of 
July are fully fledged.” 
The snowflake resorts in summer to the northernmost parts of 
the interior to rear its young; but as the cold weather comes on 
nearly all go south to the warmer or less snowy parts of Canada, 
and the same may be said of the Lapland longspun 
The western savanna sparrow is not uncommon, Osgood finding 
many young about Circle City in August; and Cambell’s, or the inter¬ 
mediate, white-crowned sparrow is one of the most numerous and 
familiar of summer birds all over the Territory, beginning to nest 
about May 20. Its nest ordinarily is placed on the ground, rarely in 
low bushes, and is lined with deer’s hair and feathers, or sometimes 
with club-moss. The four eggs “have a clayey-white ground-color, 
thickly covered with small reddish spots,” and measure about .87 by 
.64 of an inch. 
The golden-crowned sparrow is much less often seen in the 
interior than near the coast. The western tree sparrow is very 
numerous, but the chipping sparrow much less so. In regard to the 
tree sparrow Nelson gives many particulars: 
Upon its first arrival it comes about the trading-posts and native villages, 
frequenting the weed-patches. After a short visit here, and when the snow 
has melted from portions of their bushy retreats, they leave the vicinity 
of man and betake themselves to the hill-sides, where . . . the young 
are hatched and become fully fledged early in July. Toward the last of this 
month—sometimes by the middle—the young and old come trooping back 
to the vicinity of the houses, ready to feast with numbers of their fellows in 
a motley crowd among the weed-patches and in the garden-plot. During 
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