The Larger Land-Birds. 



The only game-bird of the region is the white-tailed ptarmigan, 

 and its dwelling-place is far up the slopes of the mountains. Neither 

 partridge nor pigeon has been noted, except one record of a mourning 

 dove. 



Birds of prey, however, find plentiful means of living, and abound 

 throughout the coastal district. The almost cosmopolitan marsh 

 hawk shows itself occasionally, and probably rears its young among 

 the reeds margining one or another of the many lakelets. The sharp- 

 shinned hawk is there, and will be likely to increase as civilization 

 extends its conquest to the wilderness. The western goshawk and 

 the roughleg are to be found, both nesting in tall trees. The western 

 redtail is seen occasionally in .the south, usually hunting for mice 

 about timber-line on the mountains. The bald eagle, according to 

 Willett, is the most common raptorial bird of the coast south of St. 

 Elias ; it is also conspicuously present elsewhere in Alaska. Mr. 

 Willett offers the following interesting note upon it at Sitka : 



The nest is always placed near salt water, all those noted being in tall 

 coniferous trees. The birds seen in the high mountains during the summer 

 were nearly all immature. The young leave the nest late in August. Accord- 

 ing to James Brightman, the eggs are deposited in late April and early May. 

 During the early summer these birds apparently subsist to a considerable 

 extent on fawns. Several dead eagles examined at this season were gorged 

 with fawn-meat, and the claws were covered with hair. The hunters of the 

 region claim that the eagle is the worst enemy the deer have, and kill them 

 at every opportunity. In the early fall, when the salmon are running up 

 the streams to spawn, these birds feed largely on fish, and they may be seen 

 in numbers around every salmon-stream. A nest examined in St. Lazaria 

 Island in August, 1912, contained the remains of a great number of tufted 

 puffins and young glaucous-winged gulls. 



The golden eagle also frequents the sea-fronting cliffs, but is 

 more familiar westward; also both forms of the duck hawk. The 

 pigeon hawk (of the "black" variety) and the fish hawk complete 

 the summer list, but both are rare. 



Of the owls, the short-eared finds excellent nesting-places in the 

 thick woods, where also Kennicott's screech-owl is heard, but neither 

 is common. Of the large owls, two are resident — the dusky variety 

 of the great horned owl and the gray owl. Both the snowy and 

 the hawk owls are to be found in winter among the mountains. 



13 



