420 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



delta through the Kowak valley. My first acquaintance with this 

 species was made on the 25th August, '98, when two adults and 

 two full-grown young were observed. They were silent save for 

 a low, mellow call-note, and were feeding on the green alder seed- 

 pods. I secured the two adults, which were in moulting plumage. 

 In September and October pine grosbeaks were quite numerous, 

 being often met with in companies of six to a dozen, immatpres 

 and adults together. They were usually among the scattering 

 birch and spruce which line the low ridges. There, until the snow 

 covered the ground, they fed on blue-berries, rose-apples and 

 cranberries. During the winter their food was much the same as 

 that of the redpolls— seeds and buds of birch, alder and willow, and 

 sometimes tender spruce needles. In the severest winter weather 

 they were not often in the spruce, but had then retired into the 

 willow beds. The usual note is a clear whistle of three syllables. 

 The native name Ki-u-tak represents it. Then there was a low, 

 mellow, one-syllabled note uttered among members of a flock 

 when alarmed. Twice I noted solitary males, when flying across 

 the woods, singing a loud, rollicking warble, much like a purple 

 finch. One morning, the i8th February, found me across the 

 river skirting the willows in search of ptarmigan. Although it 

 was 50 degrees below zero, a pine grosbeak, from the depths of a 

 nearby thicket, suddenly burst forth in a rich melodious strain, 

 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 I Again 

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

 sang similarly at intervals for riearly 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 like 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 



