scooped out of the sand. The Canada goose is there, too, but is rare. 

 The cackling goose also abounds along the larger rivers and lakes. 

 The whistling swan. nests all over the interior, where the trumpeter 

 also is occasionally met. 



Shore-birds and Game-birds 



The climate and character of the country are unfavorable for the 

 large waders, and the only representative of the group in this district 

 is the little brown or sandhill crane, which seems to be more common 

 in the valley of the Porcupine River than anywhere else. 



Of the small waders, however, many species are to be enumerated. 

 The red phalarope nests in the marshes of the interior, as on the coast, 

 and Wilson's, miscalled the English snipe, and the long-billed do- 

 witcher (more common and widely distributed) along the Yukon near 

 the international boundary ; but other small waders are rare there ex- 

 cept the familiar spotted sandpiper, or tip-up. "Hardly a day 

 passed," Bishop notes, "without our seeing many along the shore 

 [of the Yukon], or skimming over the river. The least, and the 

 semipalmated, and the western sandpipers are present in the breed- 

 ing-season, but are usually rare. Whether the Hudsonian godwit and 

 the pectoral sandpiper breed inland seems doubtful. The solitary 

 sandpiper, lesser yellowlegs, wandering tattler and upland plover are 

 also recorded as breeders, but probably nowhere in abundance. 



Plovers are more fitted to the inland conditions, and most of the 

 northern species make their home along the Yukon — among them 

 the golden, the black-bellied and the semipalmated, but the last is the 

 one most commonly obtained by sportsmen. The surf-bird also is 

 credited with a place in this district. 



Turning to the grouse, both varieties of the Canada or spruce 

 grouse, or fool-hen, resort in summer to breeding-places all over the 

 interior of the Territory, and are resident, as a rule, wherever found. 

 "At Anvik on the lower Yukon," according to Nelson, "it is rather 

 common, and inhabits the mixed forests of spruce and deciduous trees, 

 whence it has the habit of coming out on the gravelly river-bank, 

 early in the morning, during pleasant weather in spring and sum- 

 mer." Closely associated with it in extent and station is the gray 

 variety of the ruffed grouse. 



The willow ptarmigan is also widely distributed as a resident 

 throughout the year, but most commonly toward the northern part of 

 the forested region. "In autumn," to quote Nelson again, "they unite 

 in great flocks and migrate south to the sheltered banks of the Kus- 



17 



