220 A WINTER'S DAY IN THE YUKON TERRITORY. 
We start at ten o'clock, just as the December sun emerges 
from the southern hills and casts its welcome beams over the 
broad tundra covered with snow, flecking the green spruce 
boughs with golden touches of light, and giving a mellow 
tone to the clear blue sky. The temperature may be about 
twenty below zero, but in our warm deerskin dresses, we 
feel that it is only just cold enough to make the blood leap 
and the nerves thrill with the excitement of a brisk walk, 
skimming over the snow with our light snowshoes. 
We just clear the alder bushes around the village when a 
chirp and twitter in a clump of willows attract our attention. 
We look, and see a flock of the Pine Grosbeaks (Pinicola enu- 
cleator), brilliant in searlet and yellow, rifling the willows of 
their buds, carefully rejecting the scales and eating only the 
tender green hearts of the young buds. "They look so pretty 
as they rufle their scarlet coats, defying the winter frost, 
fat and comfortable with abundance of food, that we hesitate 
before we bring our guns to bear on them, and reluctantly 
add half a dozen members of the happy family to our col- 
lecting bag, with a single shot. They have the large bill 
which has been thought to distinguish the European form 
alone, and eannot be distinguished from typical specimens 
of the enucleator. "They are among the most common of the 
Yukon birds in winter, and though quite small are usually 
fat and tender, and not to be despised in a pie. Leaving 
the banks of the Ulokuk River we strike aeross an undu- 
lating prairie called tundra by the Russians, and only marked 
by clumps of dwarf willow (Salix Richardsonii), which 
project above the snow. Here and there a larch shakes its 
myriads of little cones in the passing breeze, or a small 
spruce shows its green tips; but the large spruce, poplar, 
willow and birch, prefer the vicinity of the river. The 
snow-covered Ulokuk Hills smooth, serene and beautiful, 
bear up the reluctant sun, which seems loth to part from the 
horizon. Does the snow move? or what is that by yonder 
willow brush? We are answered as a covey of the exquisite 
