BIEDS. 173 



capture, but uot a single iudividual was secured or reported as haviug been seeu during my four 

 jears' resideuce iu the Territory. It is to be hoped that more careful work iu the interior may 

 result in finding it a regular inhabitant of the Territory, for its elegant coloration and the well- 

 known beautiful notes of all the birds of this genus render it a valuable and interesting member 

 of the bird-life of any region. 



LoxiA CURVIROSTRA MINOR (Brehm). American Crossbill. 



Along the southeastern coast of the Territory, in the vicinity of Sitka and the adjoining 

 regions, this is a rather common bird. North of the Alaskan Mountains, however, it has been 

 obtained only in a single instance ; this was a male, taken by L. M. Turner iu the vicinity of Saint 

 Michaels during the winter. It is an immature bird, with a mixed red and yellow plumage, and, 

 like all the specimens I have examined from Sitka and Kadiak, as well as Shoalwater Bay, Wash- 

 ington Territory, is very small as comj)ared with birds from the Eastern United States and the 

 Rocky Mountains. Although a large number of the white-winged species were brought me from 

 various points on the Yukon, and others were obtained by myself in the interior, not a single Eed 

 Cross-bill was seen, nor was it found by the Western Union Telegraph explorers; so its rarity in the 

 northern portion of the Territory is established. In the N^atioual Museum collection is a specimen 

 from Fort Eae which is differently colored from any other examjile in the entire series. It is of 

 a dark maroon color with a clear ashy suffusion on the back. There are two distinct dusky stripes 

 on the cheek, one on the upper edge of the ear-coverts, the other along the lower edge. The 

 lining of the wing is without the red tint, which appears in all the other specimens of true americana 

 and inexicana. The wings and tail are a pure sepia-brown, quite different from the others, and 

 the feathers show no red margins. The lower mandible is very much curved. This specimen is 

 noted in the History of North American Birds, and is certainly in very curious plumage. It 

 would not be surprising to find that it is a stray representative of the Northeastern Siberia race, 

 although it is possible that it is merely a remarkable individual variation of the ordinary bird. 



This species, like several other hardy birds, attends to its nesting and the rearing of its young 

 during the most inhospitable part of the year. Commeuciug early in March, they continue the 

 duties of incubation through the frequently intense cold of their northern home with the same 

 success as the Whisky Jack and one or two other species. They are strange, wandering birds, 

 abundant in a locality at one season and disappearing again may be for years, to turn up again 

 as unexpectedly as they left. In the Old World it is represented by a closely-related form, which 

 in Asia extends as far south as the limits of the Pakearctic region. 



Middendorf observed it along the Yenesei above latitude 62^ N., and flocks were seen at 

 Ivikulik early in October. It is recorded as tolerably common in Japan, also iu Northern China, 

 where it is kept by the people as a cage-bird. 



In describing the nesting habits of this bird in the north of Scotland, Mr. J. A. Uarvie- Brown 

 writes that the female is always on the nest while incubating, and is fed constantly by the male, 

 and that the young birds are found sometimes as early as March 10. The size of the beak varies, 

 and the birds from Scotland are said to show a range reaching from variety americana to variety 

 pityopsittacus, or the heavy-beaked European form, answering closely to our inexicana. A young 

 female from Sweden is of a little lighter color than the American bird of the same plumage and sex. 

 The average length of sixteen European eggs is seven-eighths by five-eighths of an inch. 



The half dozen Alaskan and northwest coast specimens of this Crossbill are very difl'erent in size 

 from the ordinary bird of the remainder of North America, and agree so uniformly among them- 

 selves that it would appear as though here was another northwest coast race. The small num- 

 ber of specimens, however, render it hazardous to venture a definite conclusion. Among the large 

 series of specimens in the National Museum collection from various parts of North America the 

 only specimens of the diminutive size of those from the northwest coast are two taken iu New Y'ork 

 State. Should the diminutive size of the birds from the northwest coast prove to be uniform it may 

 be necessary to recognize them as a distinct race.* 



* The Alaskan specimens here alluded to by Mr. Nelson agree with the small eastern examples to which Mr 

 Ridgway would restrict (Proe. Biol. Soc. Wash., 11,105,1884) the name L. americana. — H. W. H. 



