1926] Swwrth: Birds and Mammals from the Atlin Region 73 



two could be found wherever conditions were favorable, a gravelly or 

 sandy shore being the main requisite. The birds were noisy and 

 solicitous on the breeding grounds. The sitting bird left the nest at 

 the first appearance of an intruder in the distance, and male and 

 female together hovered about, calling overhead or fluttering painfully 

 over the ground with wings and tail outspread and dragging. 



A nest was found June 10, containing four eggs, heavily incubated. 

 This was in a gravelly area of wide expanse where Pine Creek empties 

 into Atlin Lake, a locality that held at least three pairs of the plovers. 

 The nest was in hard gravel, a depression about one inch deep and 

 with vertical, sharply defined walls, the hole partly filled with 

 small chips of wood and a few coarse straws. The eggs were placed 

 perpendicularly, points down. 



On June 20 the first young were seen, just hatched. The last semi- 

 palmated plover, a single bird, was seen at Como Lake, August 21. 

 Two specimens were collected (nos. 44656-44657), both newly hatched 

 young, one taken June 20, the other, July 21. 



Aphriza virgata (Gmelin). Surf -bird 



A single bird was shot by Brooks at Carcross, on the morning of 

 May 27. It was taken at the same spot as the wandering tattler of 

 two days before. 



Dendragapus obscurus flemingi Taverner. Fleming Grouse 



Nine specimens were collected by me (nos. 44658-44665, and one, 

 unnumbered, presented to Allan Brooks). The series includes one 

 small chick changing from natal down to juvenal plumage ; one young 

 male nearly through the post-juvenal molt ; two old cocks, two years 

 old or more; two males of the previous summer; two females in fully 

 acquired first winter plumage; one adult female just through the 

 annual molt. Brooks collected additional specimens, old and young, 

 all of which I examined, and there are at hand, from previous expedi- 

 tions in northern British Columbia, five adult females and three birds 

 in juvenal plumage throughout. During the late fall following my 

 departure from Atlin, Mr. A. B. Taylor, of that place, secured for me 

 twelve additional specimens (nos. 46091-46102), six males and six 

 females, some fully adult and some birds of the year. These constitute 

 an invaluable series, as all are in freshly acquired fall plumage. 



