backed — and two kinglets. As to the kinglets Grinnell makes some 

 interesting observations; he found the golden-crowned common 

 everywhere about Sitka, especially in the dense fir thickets along the 

 streams. He says : 



On June 22, as I was carefully, picking my way through a clump of firs, 

 I chanced upon six of these mites of birds sitting in a row close together 

 on a twig; but when one of the parents appeared and discovered me, her 

 single sharp note scattered them in all directions with a chorus of squeaks, 

 and then in a moment all was quiet and not one to be seen, although all were 

 probably watching me intently within a radius of ten feet. 



Of the thrush family this coastal region has the russet-backed 

 and the Alaska hermit. The western variety of the robin is present in 

 large numbers, and with the familiar disposition he shows in the East ; 

 also the Oregon, or varied, robin — the last of the list of those birds 

 known or believed to rear their young on the seaward side of the 

 mountains. 



WOODED-INTERIOR DISTRICT (B) 



The principal sources of information upon the birds of the in- 

 terior of Alaska are the Report by Edward W. Nelson, hitherto 

 quoted, and the account by Dr. Louis B. Bishop, in North American 

 Fauna, No. 19, of a "biological reconnoissance of Alaska" made in the 

 summer of 1889. Dr. Bishop states that about a third of the birds 

 noted by him had their center of distribution in the east, and mi- 

 grated to Alaska along the Yukon Valley. 



The account of the birds of this district, which embraces the for- 

 ested part of the Territory north of the Alaskan Mountains, begins, 

 as usual, at the lower end of the scale in classification, so that-^as sea- 

 birds are absent — the first to be mentioned are the fresh-water ducks. 

 The American and red-breasted mergansers, the mallard, shoveler, 

 baldpate, pintail, scaup, American goldeneye or whistlewing, buffle- 

 head, old-squaw, harlequin, both of the teals, and the surf-scoter, all 

 occur, breeding in suitable places ; but the green-winged teal and the 

 pintail are by far the most widely distributed and most often en- 

 countered. The breeding-habits of several of them, typical of all, 

 have been described by Mr. Nelson (pages 40, 41) as he learned them 

 on the coastal tundras. 



Of the geese, while all species are seen during their migrations, 

 the brown, or Hutchins's goose, is most numerous in summer in 

 the interior, where they are said to resort to the hilltops for nesting- 

 sites. Dall reports the white-fronted goose, however, breedino- gre- 

 gariously all along the Yukon, depositing their eggs in hollows 



16 



