1926] Swarth: .Birds and Mammals from, the Atlin Region 135 



Biological Survey, at Bennett, June 9, 1903, made it a fair presump- 

 tion that this was the ease. We found no nest, but on June 30 we 

 collected a brood of six youug, just able to fly ; the nest must have 

 been close by. The young birds, huddled together in a spruce thicket, 

 were being fed by one parent, which escaped. This was at the head 

 of Caiion Creek, altitude 4000 feet, in a sparsely wooded mountain 

 valley, close to the upper limit of upright timber. The young birds 

 were extremely noisy ; it was the incessant squalling for food that drew 

 our attention, from a distance. Their stomachs were well filled, mostly 

 with insect remains, including some small Coleoptera; in one stomach 

 there were parts of a very young ptarmigan chick, including the bill. 

 Three of the young were preserved by Brooks, three by Swarth 

 (nos. 44897-44899). 



On July 28 an adult male (no. 44900) was collected at the head of 

 Otter Creek (about 3500 feet altitude). This bird is in the midst of 

 the annual molt. Above and below the old feathers are extremely 

 pale colored. The underparts are almost pure white, the old feathers 

 having lost every vestige of the dusky vermiculations. Such markings 

 show plainly enough on the new breast feathers, just coming in. The 

 stomach held insect remains. The species was observed only on these 

 two occasions. 



A notable feature of the shrikes in juvenal plumage is their gray 

 coloration. In the freshly acquired first winter plumage there is a 

 decidedly brown tone both above and below, but, save for the wing 

 markings, none of this appears in the juvenal stage. This plumage 

 is mostly clear gray, slightly darker on the dorsum, and finely 

 vermiculated below. 



Through the courtesy of Dr. Louis B. Bishop there are available 

 from his collection 57 specimens of Lawius borealis, about equally 

 divided between eastern and western localities. In this museum there 

 are twenty-six skins, fourteen western and twelve eastern. From the 

 Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, I was able to borrow two adult males 

 from the east side of Hudson Bay. These two, with one from Magdalen 

 Island, in the Bishop collection, ai-e the only breeding birds I have 

 seen from eastern localities. 



The subspecies imvictus (Grinnell, 1900, p. 54), described from the 

 Kowak River, Alaska, was characterized as of larger size, paler colora- 

 tion dorsally, and with the white markings greater in extent, as com- 

 pared with eastern birds. I can distinguish a slight average difference 

 in size (see table), and, iji some specimens, in the color characters also. 



