KOBUK 137 



they occur and are known on the wooded part of the Kobuk but since 

 no other report names them, their presence is not taken to be established. 

 The variety of names given to small hawks in Eskimo can be as 

 confusing as their vague designation in English. I do not think that 

 the sparrow hawk (F. spaf'verius) is known in Kobuk. Only Mc- 

 Lenegan (1889) had named them on the upper river. In agreement 

 with Grinnell (1900) I do not consider their regular occurrence at 

 Kobuk to be established. 



Family TETRAONIDAE: Grouse and Ptarmigan 



McLenegan (1889) heard rujffed grouse {Bonasa umhellus) drum- 

 ming in the woods along the upper Kobuk, but Townsend (1887) did 

 not mention them and Grinnell (1900) reported that he could find no 

 valid indication of their presence. The Eskimos at Kobuk would 

 know if ruffed grouse were now present, but they did not appear to 

 recognize them from descriptions. They do mention stories of "wil- 

 low grouse," which had been seen about 1928, and which they 

 described like sharp-tailed grouse, Pediocetes phasianellus. Stories 

 among the Nunamiut, and information related to me by David Tobuk 

 and Big Joe Sousik, two older Eskimos at Bettles, indicate that 

 sharp-tailed grouse (often called "willow grouse" in Alaska and 

 Yukon) had occurred some years ago in the forests along the southern 

 slopes of the central Brooks Range. Nunamiut and Kobuk people 

 alike name these sharp-tailed grouse OdgillimAikadga; the name mean- 

 ing "birch ptarmigan." Dall and Bannister (1869) found ruffed 

 grouse at Nulato and generally along the Yukon. It is possible that 

 its range, and likely that of the sharp-tailed grouse, extended to 

 Kobuk at some former time. The northwestern border of their range 

 apparently does not now reach the forests of the Kobuk or the central- 

 southern watershed of the Brooks Range. 



Family CHARADRIIDAE : Plovers, Turnstones, Surfbirds 

 Charadrius vociferus vociferus Linnaeus 



Among Kobuk people and Nunamiut the killdeer was apparently 

 recognized in illustrations and its distinctive behavior and appear- 

 ance were suitably described. Sheldon gave it a different Eskimo 

 name from that of the Nunamiut, but both Eskimo names are akin 

 to those for the other plovers and unrelated to any of the names for 

 sandpipers. The appearance of killdeers at Kobuk would so far ex- 

 tend their reported range that the present evidence cannot be said 

 to establish their occurrence there. 



