to paddle away. At the first stroke a shrill, exultant note caused us 

 to look back, and there, balanced on the tip of the largest alder stood 

 a whisky jack, his attitude and cries expressing contemptuous de- 

 rision at our failure to see him while camped within ten feet. The 

 Eskimos were as much amused as .rnyself by this impudent perform- 

 ance, and we paddled away laughing^ while the bird proceeded to 

 search our camping-place for scraps of food. 



The water-ouzel, or dipper, is another of the notable land-birds 

 that lives throughout the year in the North. It is smaller than the 

 robin, has a much shorter tail, and is of nearly uniform dark leaden 

 gray. The ouzel dwells along small swift streams, and feeds on 

 insects and other minute animals that it finds along the margins or 

 seeks by diving into the water and walking along the bottom. In 

 winter its distribution is limited strictly to the vicinity of openings in 

 the ice, where the current is so swift that it does not freeze over. 

 Through these openings the ouzels reach the bottom of the streams 

 and gather their food. It appears almost incredible that these small 

 birds can exist by haunting the icy margins of such openings in the 

 vicinity of the northern limit of trees, and in temperatures often 

 ranging from 50° to 70° F. below zero ; but they have dense and 

 closely set feathers that turn water like the plumage of a duck. 



That some water-fowl are equally hardy, is shown by the obser- 

 vations of Charles Sheldon during the winter of 1907-8, which he 

 spent on the north base of Mt. McKinley. On January 3, 1908, he 

 visited a point on the Toklat River about forty miles above its mouth 

 where a swift rapid about three miles long prevents the water from 

 freezing throughout the winter. Here a flock of about three hun- 

 dred mallard ducks were wintering, and were feeding solely upon the 

 dead salmon and unhatched salmon eggs lodged in the bottom of 

 the stream. Sheldon reports that mallards had been noted wintering 

 at this place during the preceding seven years, and mentions several 

 other places in interior Alaska where mallards are known to winter. 

 These observations show that birds are indifferent to the lowest win- 

 ter temperatures, as long as sufficient food is available. 



One winter during my residence in the North Jack McQuesten 

 brought me a fine specimen of the fork-tailed petrel, that he had cap- 

 tured toward the end of November at an opening in the ice about 

 seventy-five miles above the mouth of the Tanana River. This bird 

 was evidently a stray individual that had become lost over the snow- 

 covered land, and had wandered many hundreds of miles from its 

 proper wintering-range in the North Pacific. It was extremely emaci- 



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