The rock ptarmigan, in several local races, alone represents the 
grouse family in this district, and is distributed as follows; Nelson’s 
subspecies on Unalaska, Akutan and Unimak islands; Turner’s on 
Atka and neighboring islands; Townsend’s on Kiska Island; the Adak 
on Adak Island; and Evermann’s on Attu Island. These races have 
become differentiated from each other, and from the type, by their 
isolation, each being subject to conditions of climate and food not felt 
by the others. 
Both the bald and golden eagles are commonly seen throughout 
the long archipelago, and Peale’s falcon, a variety of the duck hawk, 
breeds commonly throughout the archipelago, building its nest like 
the eagles on the sea-cliffs, almost always close to a colony of eiders, 
whose young it seizes as dainties for its own. The commonest bird 
of prey on these islands, as elsewhere in Alaska, is the short-eared 
owl, from whose liver the Aleuts make a love-philter; the snowy owl 
also breeds there but is rare. Ravens are numerous and busy every¬ 
where, and are the scavengers of the villages, and Turner and other 
historians relate many curious incidents of their intelligence and 
impudent tameness. 
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