220 :!^ATUEAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS IN ALASKA. 



Dall secured a uest and two eggs of this bird near Nulato, May 22, 1867, and states that the 

 birds arrive there about May 15, and frequent the vicinity of the smaller streams. He found its 

 nests along the Yukon to Fort Yukon and near Nulato. 



According to this observer, the Varied Thrush was not very common at Nulato, nor, according 

 to the iuformation I have been able to secure, is it numerous anywhere in the northern portion of 

 the Territorj-, though generally distributed and of regular occurrence. A few pairs breed every 

 summer in the alder and willow thickets about the shores of Norton Sound, and a single specimen 

 was brought me from latitude 08°, north of Kotzebue Sound. I had no opportunity of observing 

 the little known habits of this interesting species, but learned that it generally arrives before the 

 ground is free from snow, during the middle and last of May, and leaves before the cold storms 

 of autumn commence. The nest found by Dall was built in the midst of a large heap of rubbish 

 in a group of willows, about 2 feet above the ground, and close to the river bank. The eggs 

 were bluish, speckled with brown. 



As noted above, this handsome Thrush ranges north to the Lower Mackenzie Elver, where it 

 nests. All the wooded country to the west and south of this to the shores of Bering Sea, and 

 along the coast of the North Pacific south to Washington and Oregon, may be included in its 

 breeding range, thus including within its summer habitat both Arctic and temperate climates, as 

 well as the very dissimilar Canadian and northwest coast ftiunal provinces. 



Cyanecula suecica (Linn.) Eed-spotted Blue-throat. 



On the 5th of June, 1851, Dr. Adams found a flock of seven of these handsome birds feeding 

 about some willows in the vicinity of Saint Michaels. They were very shy, and he succeeded in 

 obtaining but a single specimen. They were not seen afterwards, and the natives were said 

 not to be familiar with them. This is the solitary record by which this interesting species 

 claims i)lace as an American bird. In Northern Siberia, Seebohm found it extending its range to 

 latitude 71° north, and in this List of the Birds of the Lower Petchora, Ibis VI, 125, 1876, Seebohm 

 and Harvie Brown write as follows of this species : 



The Swedish Nightingale is au exceediuglj' abundant species in Northern Rnssia : and in early summer it enlivens 

 by its admirable mimicry every patch of under- wood in the forests of pine and jnuiper ou the sides of the valleys 

 near Ust Zylma. It is abundant also in the birch- aud-willow thickets and swamps along the river banks, and ou the 

 islands all the way north to Stanavoialachta. Even such dips and hollows of the tundra as can boast of a patch of 

 willow-scrnb holds a few pairs. * » * 



Often we were pnzzled by the mimicry of this line songster. Ou one occasion, after listening for some time to 

 the well-knowu musical cry of the Terek Sandpiper, iirr-r-r-ichui, blended with the songs of scores of other birds on 

 approaching we saw our little friend perched high in a willow bush, with throat distended, bill rapidly vibrating, and 

 uttering the tirr-r-r-ivJiui with perfect distinctness. We have heard the Blue-throated Warbler also imitate, among 

 other bird voices, the trilling first notes of the wood-.Sandpiper, or the full rich song of the Redwing. Sometimes he 

 runs these together in such a way as to form a perfect medley of bird music, defying one who is not watching to 

 say whether or not the whole bird population of that part of the forest are equally engaged in the concert at the 

 same time. 



Throughout the north of Europe and Siberia this bird breeds, Seebohm gives it as one of 

 the earliest insect-eating species to arrive on the Lower Y'enesei. He states also that for a week 

 or two they were very common, but as the snow disappeared they gradually left, only a few re- 

 maining to breed. As before stated, he found that they extend their range to latitude 71° north, 

 where they disappeared. It makes its nest in bushes and weeds, generally close to the ground. 

 The structui'e is a simple one, and contains five or six eggs of a greenish-olive or greenish-blue 

 shotted with a deeper shade of the same color, the spots sometimes being scarcely visible. The 

 eggs measure 0'", 02 lo 0'", 014 or 0", 015. In Northern Europe, the Swedish Nightingale, as this 

 bird is termed, frequents, by preference, the rocky or bush-grown banks of small streams. The fol- 

 lowing description is taken from specimens in the collection of the National ^Museum. As the 

 bird represents a genus as well as a species which has never been described in any American 

 work on ornithology, I give the generic characters as well as the specific. It may be prefaced that 

 this genus is closely related to Saxicola ; 



Generic characieni. — Bill slenderer than in Sa.vicola ; gape bristled; nostrils bare and ovoid; 

 tail about three-fourths of wing; feet, claws, and tarsus long and slender iu comparison with 



