to paddle away. At the first stroke a shrill, exultant note caused us 
to look back, and there, balanced on the tip of the largest alder stood 
a whisky jack, his attitude and cries expressing contemptuous de¬ 
rision at our failure to see him while camped within ten feet. The 
Eskimos were as much amused as myself by this impudent perform¬ 
ance, and we paddled away laughing, while the bird proceeded to 
search our camping-place for scraps of food. 
The water-ouzel, or dipper, is another of the notable land-birds 
that lives throughout the year in the North. It is smaller than the 
robin, has a much shorter tail, and is of nearly uniform dark leaden 
gray. The ouzel dwells along small swift streams, and feeds on 
insects and other minute animals that it finds along the margins or 
seeks by diving into the water and walking along the bottom. In 
winter its distribution is limited strictly to the vicinity of openings in 
the ice, where the current is so swift that it does not freeze over, 
ddirough these openings the ouzels reach the bottom of the streams 
and gather their food. It appears almost incredible that these small 
birds can exist by haunting the icy margins of such openings in the 
vicinity of the northern limit of trees, and in temperatures often 
ranging from 50° to 70° F. below zero; but they have dense and 
closely set feathers that turn water like the plumage of a duck. 
That some water-fowl are equally hardy, is shown by the obser¬ 
vations of Charles Sheldon during the winter of 1907-8, which he 
spent on the north base of Mt. McKinley. On January 3, 1908, he 
visited a point on the Toklat River about forty miles above its mouth 
where a swift rapid about three miles long prevents the water from 
freezing throughout the winter. Here a flock of about three hun¬ 
dred mallard ducks were wintering, and were feeding solely upon the 
dead salmon and unhatched salmon eggs lodged in the bottom of 
the stream. Sheldon reports that mallards had been noted wintering 
at this place during the preceding seven years, and mentions several 
other places in interior Alaska where mallards are known to winter. 
These observations show that birds are indifferent to the lowest win¬ 
ter temperatures, as long as sufficient food is available. 
One winter during my residence in the North Jack McQuesten 
brought me a fine specimen of the fork-tailed petrel, that he had cap¬ 
tured toward the end of November at an opening in the ice about 
seventy-five miles above the mouth of the Tanana River. This bird 
was evidently a stray individual that had become lost over the snow- 
covered land, and had wandered many hundreds of miles from its 
proper wintering-range in the North Pacific. It was extremely emaci- 
29 
