332 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vol. 24 



Provincial Museum, Victoria, British Columbia, twenty-seven speci- 

 mens from Lake Atlin, including nine summer males and eight summer 

 females, and a male and female from Anaham Lalre. 



Island specimens of alexandrae (summer males), compared with 

 lagopus from the Yukon and Kowak regions, are darker colored and 

 with smaller and differently shaped bill. (The bill difference has 

 been figured by Clark, 1910, p. 53.) Color is darkest in specimens 

 from Prince of "Wales Island. x\tlin birds and Nine-mile Mountain 

 birds are essentially alike, and are intermediate in color between 

 lagopus of the interior and alexandrae from the islands; the average 

 is nearer to alexandrae. The bill in size and shape is just as in alex- 

 andrae. Females from Atlin and Nine-mile Mountain differ from , 

 Kowak and Yukon birds in bill characters as do the males, and also 

 in color. They are not of darker and richer browns, as might be 

 expected, but present a duller, grayer appearance. In the northern 

 lagopus the feathers above and below are broadly edged with bright 

 hazel; in the southern birds these edgings are narrow and dull. On 

 the basis of these comparisons I feel justified in extending the range 

 of alexandrae eastward from the coast, at the north to Lake Atlin, 

 at the south to Nine-mile Mountain and Anaham Lake. There is no 

 question as to the difference of these southern mainland birds from 

 lagopus of northern Alaska and the interior. 



It is of interest to note in alexandrae the frequent presence of black 

 shafts on the primaries, sometimes on secondaries and greater coverts. 

 This character has been considered an important feature of the New- 

 foundland subspecies {L. I. alleni), as in the "key to the American 

 subspecies of Lagopus lagopus" published by Clark (loc. cit., p. 54), 

 but obviously it cannot be used as a feature characteristic of that race 

 alone. In an immature female from Prince of "Wales Island (no. 

 31343, August 27), which has acquired the winter flight feathers, not 

 only are primaries and secondaries with distinct black shafts, but there 

 are large, tear-shaped spots of black near the tips of all the primaries 

 and most of the secondaries. Furthermore, the primaries have a black 

 'freckling' over much of their surface, and the greater coverts are also 

 marked with black though to a lesser degree. 



