210 KEELER 



At about nine o'clock on the evening of the day we left 

 Wrangell we cast anchor in the beautiful waters of Taku 

 Harbor. Here Dr. Merriam went ashore with a small 

 party to put out traps for mammals, and I had an oppor- 

 tunity to walk by the stream and listen to the enchanting 

 song of the russet-backed thrush. This thrush is a com- 

 mon summer resident of the Pacific Coast and is the most 

 accomplished song bird of the region. It is a trifle larger 

 than the dwarf hermit thrush and its back is uniform rus- 

 set-brown. Both species have a distinct ring of white or 

 buff around the eye, and both have the white breast more 

 or less tinged with buff and conspicuously spotted with 

 triangular dusky-brown marks. 



Like birds of passage we hurried on. Gliding up the 

 wonderful reaches of Lynn Canal, past glaciers and tower- 

 ing mountain summits, we arrived at Skagway, and on the 

 following morning took the train for the summit of White 

 Pass, now so famous as the highway to the Klondike. 



It is not strange that few birds choose so drear a place 

 for their summer home. The wonder is that any are hardy 

 enough to undertake the rearing of a family there. It must 

 be a blithe heart indeed that can sing all day long with 

 thick fog overhead, and bleak rocks, half buried in snow- 

 drifts, underfoot; but birds there were, singing their frail, 

 sweet songs in defiance of the rudeness of nature. We 

 observed three species, two of which spend their winters 

 in the valleys of California the golden-crowned sparrow 

 and the American pipit or titlark while the third, Hep- 

 burn's leucosticte, scorns to haunt the valleys at any sea- 

 son, but follows the margin of the snow, year in, year out. 



The golden-crowned sparrow arrested the attention of 

 our entire party, not only at White Pass but at other points 

 where it was found in great numbers. To me it was an old 

 friend, for throughout the winter it is one of the most 

 abundant of California valley birds, but to those of the 



