390 THROUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



is three or four, although sets of five may sometimes be 

 found. Their ground colour is generally pale grey, more 

 rarely pearl grey. They are profusely flecked and spotted 

 over the entire surface vs^ith different shades of brown, slate 

 grey and lavender. Their shape is ovate ; the shell is smooth, 

 close-grained, and somewhat glossy." 



In his breeding notes (" Catalogue of Canadian Birds") 

 Professor Macoun has omitted to mention the nests dis- 

 covered at Eort Anderson. Mr. Raine believes that this jay 

 is the earliest breeder of all Canadian birds. The Ottawa 

 Museum contains five specimen skins, but no eggs, of this 

 sociable and abundant Canada jay! 



486a. ISroETHEEiT EAVEiiT — Gorvus corax pi-incipalis Kidg- 

 way. 



Chief Trader Lockhart found a nest in a cleft of a poplar 

 tree, twenty feet from the ground, at Fort Yukon, Alaska, on 

 29th May, 1862. This species is abundant at Fort Anderson 

 and on the lower Lockhart and Anderson rivers, and although 

 not seen by us there, it may possibly breed on the shores of 

 the Polar Sea. All but one of the eight recorded nests were 

 situated on tall trees, one of them, containing five eggs, at a 

 height of about forty-five feet above the ground, and they 

 were composed of dry willow sticks and twigs, and thickly 

 lined with either deer hair or dry mosses, grasses, feathers, 

 and more or less skin hair from other animals. The usual 

 number of eggs was six, but seven and even- eight were not 

 uncommon. The excepted nest was built on the ledge of a 

 rocky cliff on Lockhart River. On 11th June, 1863, an 

 Eskimo brought me the egg of a pigeon hawk and the head 

 of a raven, having, as he declared, shot it on the nest, which 

 was placed on the topmost crotch of a pine tree. The latter, 

 therefore, probably either ate the other eggs, shells and all, 

 if there were any, or dispossessed the former bird in order 

 to occupy it herself. Mr. Raine has a set of six eggs that 

 was taken at Peel's River, latitude 67° 30' north, on 27th 



