416 AMPELID.E. 



parts of Asia. M. Nilsson, an ornithologist of Sweden, 

 and the author of a Fauna of Scandinavia, says, these 

 birds pass the summer in the arctic regions ; they are seen 

 on their passage in Scania in November, and return in the 

 spring. The remarks of Sir John Richardson are as fol- 

 lows ; " This elegant bird has only lately been detected 

 in America, having been discovered in the spring of 1 826, 

 near the sources of the Athabasca, or Elk River, by Mr. 

 Drummond, and by myself, the same season, at Great Bear 

 Lake, in latitude 65. In its autumn migration south- 

 wards, this bird must cross the territory of the United 

 States, if it does not actually winter within it ; but I have 

 not heard of its having been hitherto seen in America to 

 the southward of the fifty-fifth parallel of latitude. The 

 mountainous nature of the country skirting the Northern 

 Pacific Ocean being congenial to the habits of this species, 

 it is probably more generally diffused in New Caledonia 

 and Russian American territories, than to the eastward of 

 the Rocky Mountain chain. It appears in flocks at Great 

 Bear Lake about the 24th of May, when the spring thaw 

 has exposed the berries of the alpine arbutus, marsh vac- 

 cinium, &c., that have been frozen and covered during 

 winter. It stays only for a few days ; and none of the In- 

 dians of that quarter, with whom I conversed, had seen its 

 nest ; but I have reason to believe that it retires in the 

 breeding season to the rugged and secluded mountain-lime- 

 stone districts, in the sixty-seventh and sixty-eighth paral- 

 lels, when it feeds on the fruit of the common juniper, 

 which abounds in these places." In a note, Sir John 

 Richardson adds: " I observed a large flock, consisting of 

 at least three or four hundred individuals, on the banks of 

 the Saskatchewan, at Carlton House, early in May, 1827. 

 They alighted in a grove of poplars, settling all on one or 

 two trees, and making a loud twittering noise. They 



