from passing flocks, was similar to the whistle just mentioned. The birds 
that we collected had been feeding on the purple berries of some unidentified 
plant. 
The northern butcher-bird is also common all over the interior 
of Alaska; and Nelson gives a pleasantly full account of its singing, 
and of other features of its summer life, making it appear to much 
better advantage than does the ordinary biography, which dwells too 
much on the bird’s predatory habits, most noticeable in winter. 
A surprising number of those delicate migrants, the wood- 
warblers, travel annually to this far-northern region—a fact surpris¬ 
ing less on account of the cold of the climate than of the distance 
from their winter home, and of the high mountains which must be 
passed over in the flight from the Canadian plains to the valley of the 
Yukon. Yet the wooded interior of Alaska harbors in summer great 
numbers of yellow warblers, orange-crowned warblers, myrtle-birds, 
blackpolls, oven-birds, blackcaps and water-thrushes; and Mr. Nelson 
devotes many pages to his observations upon their pretty ways, which 
do not dififer essentially from those observable in more southern 
latitudes. 
The pipit lark, the dipper, the red-breasted nuthatch, the chickadee 
(in three varieties), and the ruby-crowned kinglet of Alaska, are the 
same attractive little creatures so well known elsewhere. 
This brings the list for this district up to the thrushes, a group 
that is well represented, happily for the Alaskan people. The gray¬ 
cheeked, or Alice’s, thrush is to be met with abundantly all over 
Alaska in summer; and equally numerous at that season throughout 
the wooded parts of the Territory is the local buff-cheeked variety 
of Swainson’s, or the olive-backed thrush; but it differs very slightly 
from the type in appearance, and not at all in habits. The music of 
even these charming choristers, however, is surpassed by that of the 
solitaire: 
On the hot noon of June 26, while seated on the summit of a hill some 
1,500 feet above Caribou Crossing, I heard the most beautiful bird song that 
has ever delighted my ear. It seemed to combine the strength of the robin, 
the joyousness and soaring quality of the bobolink, and the sweetness and 
purity of the wood thrush. Starting low and apparently far away, it gained 
in intensity and volume until it filled the air, and I looked for the singer 
just above my head. I finally traced the song to a Townsend solitaire that 
was seated on a dead tree about 150 yards away, pouring forth this volume of 
melody without leaving its perch. The singer came close enough later to 
make identification certain.— Bishop. 
The robin also occurs numerously wherever woods grow to give 
it food and shelter; and it is seen in the spring migrations on the 
coast of Bering Sea, but few, if any, breed there. Its relatives, the 
Oregon robin and the mountain bluebird, occasionally appear near 
the Canadian boundary. 
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