Nov., 1900] BIRDS OF THE KOTZEBUE SOUND REGION. 31 



Strongly sprucey, we valued it greatly, for fresh meat was always scarce. After 

 the snow came grouse were seldom found for they remained continually in the 

 trees. I saw but few tracks on the snow all winter, though in the fall their tracks 

 were numerous on the sand-dunes and among the willows along the river. No 

 notes whatever were heard until May, and even then the love-notes of the male 

 were but seldom heard. On May 28th I found several pairs of Spruce Grouse at 

 upper tree limit along the ba.se of the Jade Mountains. A female taken at this 

 date contained a full-sized egg in the oviduct and numerous ova of various jrizes 

 in the ovary. I failed to secure eggi or young of this sp2ci83. The weight of a 

 male bird taken in May was i:ys pounds. The Indians of this region say that it is 

 sure and immediate death for a person to even look upon the eggs of the Spruce 

 Grouse, and I could not get them to hunt grouse eggs for me for any considera- 

 tion. One man cited to me several such fatalities, one of which was of but recent 

 occurrence and in his own family. The native name of the Spruce Grouse is 

 Na-pak'to-ma-ga'ri-uk, a-gar'i-iik being their name for the ptarmigan, and 

 na-pak'tok, a spruce tree. After comparing my series of Spruce 



Grouse from the Kowak Valley, Alaska, with specimens from 

 southeastern localities, I have found the northern birds to be per- 

 ceptibly grayer, especially on the wing coverts and other upper parts of the males, 

 and with the bufFy markings in the plumage of the female paler and less extended. 

 Outran! Bangs, in the Proceedings of the New England Zoological Club, Vol. i, 

 pp. 47-48, has recently described a race of the Spruce Grouse from Labrador 

 which, as far as I can see, is identical in every respect with the Alaskan race. 

 His subspecific name labradorins was consequently unhappily chosen, for he had 

 apparently not compared his birds with other northern specimens, and evidently 

 considered his geographical race as confined to Labrador. Mr. Bangs has kindly 

 sent me four of his Labrador birds, and these, together with three others in the 

 National Museum series collected by L. M. Turner in Ungava, I have carefully 

 compared with my Alaskan birds, with the result that 1 consider the Spruce 

 Grouse of these two distant regions identical, and easily distinguishable from these 

 occurring to the southward, from Maine to Minnesota. The Northern Spruce 

 Grouse from the Kowak Valley average slightly grayer than the few specimens I 

 have seen from the Yukon Valley. In other words, the Kowak birds present the 

 north-western grey extreme. Among twenty-five Kowak specimens 



are several individual variations worth}- of mention. An adult 

 male, (No. 3842, Coll. J. G.,) which was secured near our winter 

 camp on May 2nd, '99, has the tail curiously diversified. There are sixteen 

 feathers, the normal number, but the outer seven feathers on the right side are .40 

 inch shorter than the rest, and they are very narrowly tipped with white. With- 

 in this, separated by a subterminal narrow black ]:)ar, is a small irregular jiatch of 

 pale buff. The other nine tail-feathers are normal, i)eing broadly ended with 

 buff. The bird is otherwise as usual. The narrow white tipping of the seven 

 abnormally marked tail-feathers resembles the condition in Cauachitcs fiank/inii 

 which has all the tail-feathers either wholly black or but narrowly white-tipped. 

 Another male exhibits a similar tendency but to a less degree, only three right- 

 hand outer tail-feathers being of the abnormal type. Two males in the series 

 have 18 tail-feathers. Three females have fourteen and one female has but twelve 



