452 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



something like our southern black-headed grosbeak. He con- 

 tinued, though in a more subdued fashion, for several minutes. 

 Such surroundings and conditions for a bird-song like this ! Again 

 one day in March, during a heavy snow-storm, a bright red male 

 sang similarly at intervals for nearly an hour, from an alder thicket 

 near the cabin, and as summer approached their song was heard 

 more and more frequently. Not until May 25th did I discover a 

 nest. This was barely commenced, but on June 3rd, when I 

 visited the locality again, the nest was completed and contained 

 four fresh eggs. The female was incubating, and remained on the 

 nest until nearly touched. The nest was eight feet above the 

 ground on the lower horizontal branches of a small spruce grow- 

 ing on the side of a wooded ridge. The nest was a shallow affair, 

 very much Uke a tanager's. It consisted of a loosely-laid plat- 

 form of slender spruce twigs, on which rested a symmetrically- 

 moulded saucer of fine, dry, round-stemmed grasses. Its depth 

 was about one inch and internal diameter 3.25. The eggs are pale 

 Nile blue with a possible greenish tinge, dotted and spotted with 

 pale lavender, drab and sepia. The markings are very unevenly 

 distributed, the small ends of the eggs being nearly immaculate, 

 while there is a conspicuous wreath about the large ends. The 

 markings are not abruptly defined, but the margins of the spots 

 are distinct, fading out into the surrounding ground colour. One 

 of the eggs is more thickly and evenly sprinkled with various 

 tints of bistre. The eggs are rather ovate in shape, but the small 

 ends are blunt. On June nth, in the Kowak delta, I found a 

 similarly constructed nest containing four small young; this was 

 six f^t up in a dwarf spruce, and on the 12th, I found another 

 nest in all particulars like the other two, and containing four eggs 

 almost ready to hatch. My series of 44 skins of P. e. alascensis 

 confirms the distinctness of that race; the Kowak river birds pre- 

 sent an extreme of ashness. (Grinnell.) 



5i5d. Kadiak Pine Grosbeak, 



Pinicola enucleator flammula (Homeyee) Ridgw. 1898. 



Island of Kadiak, Alaska, and Alaskan coast southward at least 

 to Sitka [probably coast of British Columbia at least in winter.] 

 (Ridgway.) 



