180 Anthony, Strmj Notes from Alaska. [\p!-ii 



On October 26 I saw the first Snowy Owl; though the species 

 is said to nest all over the peninsula, I did not "meet with any until 

 then, when I found them common near the base of the Kigulik 

 Mountains, about 20 miles from the coast. Very little snow had 

 fallen up to this time and the wind-swept hummocks offered ideal 

 watch towers where at nearly any hour of the day two or three owls 

 could be seen, certain favored elevations being scarcely ever with- 

 out a tenant on the watch for a luckless mouse or lemming. As the 

 snow became deeper mice were harder to catch, and owls corre- 

 spondingly scarce, so that by December 1 they were nearly or 

 quite all gone. 



On November 20 I heard a Chickadee on the upper Cripple 

 River, and a month later another lisped his cheery notes to me from 

 a stunted bunch of willows on Penny River as I journeyed toward 

 Nome. This was, with the exception of a few Willow Ptarmigan, 

 the last bird I saw for two months. 



Early in February 1 arranged with an Eskimo to accompany me 

 on a sledge journey to Cape Prince of Wales, thence north into the 

 Arctic as far as caprice might carry us, returning to Nome only 

 when travel with dogs was no longer practicable — late in May as it 

 subsequently proved. 



Off Grantley Harbor, at the edge of the shore ice, a large gull was 

 seen February 20. It was following an open lead along the edge 

 of the ice pack, so far away that its identity could not be ascertained. 



As the natives at Cape Prince of Wales reported no game to be 

 found to the north along the coast it was considered advisable to 

 follow up some of the rivers tributary to Grantly Harbor or Port 

 Clarence further east. 



On March 1, at Port Clarence, a flock of a dozen Snowflakes 

 marked an epoch in the trip. They were on the wind-swept sand- 

 spit, the only spot of bare earth I had so far seen on the trip, and, 

 to keep from being carried away by the gale then blowing, were 

 lying almost flat on the sand and behind frozen hummocks of snow. 



On March 3 a Richardson's Owl was caught on the Agapuk 

 River. It had taken up its quarters in an abandoned igloo, and 

 when driven into the glare of the outer world was confused, and 

 after a short flight returned to the igloo and submitted without 

 protest to capture. From an inspection of several deserted igloos 



