BIRDS OF WHITE PASS 211 



party who came from east of the Rocky Mountains it was 

 a stranger, although first cousin of two common eastern 

 species the white-throated and the white-crowned spar- 

 rows. Its typical song, though neither vivacious nor va- 

 ried, is so plaintively appealing as to win an audience 

 where other birds may chant their strains to deaf ears. 

 It is high and pensive, descending in a fine, liquid cadence 

 of three lingering notes. Some of our party, listening to 

 its song at Kadiak, fancied that the second note was 

 broken by a short halt, but after hearing it for many years 

 during the winter time, and again in its Alaska home, its 

 characteristic strain seems to me to consist of three notes 

 in a descending scale, often more or less slurred. 



At White Pass I was not a little surprised to notice that 

 its song, although precisely the same in quality as during 

 the winter time, had a different sequence of the notes, the 

 highest tone being sounded first, followed by the lowest, 

 and lastly by the medium tone. I supposed at the time 

 that its summer song differed in this respect from its winter 

 strain, but at other points in Alaska we heard the well- 

 known song of its winter pilgrimages. 



Some wag on the White Pass railroad has christened 

 this bird ' Weary Willie ' because he is forever singing 

 " I'm so tired! " As to the singer he is a simple sparrow 

 of medium size, with a back of streaked brown, chestnut, 

 and black, an ashy rump, and a plain ashy-gray breast, 

 turning to olive-brown on the sides. His distinctive mark 

 is his golden crown, changing to ashy-white on the back 

 of his head and bordered with bands of black. 



Of the pipit and leucosticte we shall see more anon, so 

 we can now leave them flitting about the snowy summits 

 of White Pass, while we hurry on our way down the 

 mountains by train to Skagway, and by steamer once 

 more through the wonderful Lynn Canal into Glacier 

 Bay. 



