30 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA [No. i. 



interior of northwestern Alaska. My three specimens from the Kowak River are 

 in perfect nuptial plumage. The scapulars are extensively marked with clear 

 bright tawny. Adults in somewhat worn post-nuptial plumage, taken by me at 

 Sitka, Alaska, July 21, 1896, have these tawny markings much more palely indi- 

 cated, possibly due to fading. 



Arcnaria intei'prcs (lyinn.). 

 Turnstone. 



This species was only met with on the coast, and at but two points. Near 

 Cape IvOwenstern on July ist, '98, I saw two pairs of Turnstones about a marshy 

 tract back of the beach. Judging from their actions, eggs or young must have 

 been in the near vicinity. They frequently uttered a loud note, much like the 

 winter call of the Red-shafted Flicker. A jaeger which happened to approach the 

 locality was speedily driven off by a pair of the Turnstones. At Cape Blossom, 

 during the first week in August, I saw a few Turnstones along the beach near the 

 Mission. 



- Canachites canadensis labradorius Bangs. 



Northern Spruce Grouse. 



The Spruce Grouse is a common resident of the Kowak Valley throughout 

 the spruce tracts. During the autumn and spring months they were easier to 

 find, as they were then often flushed from the ground in the woods where they 

 were feeding on cranberries and scratching in the turf. In September and Octo- 

 ber, wallows where they had scratched up the turf and moss would be met with 

 every few feet along the ridges, and in some places 3-ards in extent had thus been 

 worked over. On the 24th of September, '98, three grouse were shot, and the 

 attendant circumstances well indicate their protective habits. They had been 

 feeding on the side of a ridge, and we had walked nearly past them, within twenty 

 feet, when I noticed a slight movement in what I had taken at a passing glance to 

 be a birch stump sticking up from the moss. I stopped and watched it for several 

 minutes, and except for an occasional wink of its eyes, there was not a stir; the 

 bird remained in a rigid position even though we were talking and walking slowly 

 toward it. Three others were finally distinguished within a few yards of the first 

 one, all thus petrified in the various attitudes in which they undoubtedly were 

 when they first saw us approaching. At last they seemed to realize that they 

 were discovered and straightened up, raising the feathers on each side of their 

 necks and abruptly leaving the ground with a startlingly loud rush and whirr of 

 wing-beats, enough to disconcert any ordinary enemy. They flew but a short 

 distance and alighted in spruces, whence they were finally secured, save one, 

 which flew out of sight. On October 3rd I shot eight grouse early in the morning. 

 A flock of that number were on the sand at the shore of the river, evidently to 

 get water, for all the standing water was frozen over and there was as yet no 

 snow. As usual they were very easy to approach, seeming to trust entirely to 

 their protective colors and keeping perfectly still. After being shot at twice, the 

 remainder of the fleck flew up into the nearest spruces and were all successively 

 located by the swaying of the boughs. They were often seen rapidly picking ofi^ 

 the tender spruce needles at the tips of the branches. Although their flesh tasted 



