348 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



[NO. 27. 



northeast of Fort Rae, over 100 miles from the edge of the woods, in 

 April, 1894.° James MacKinlay, who accompanied Pike to the Bar- 

 ren Grounds in 1890, first noted the bird on Lockhart River, between 

 Mackay and Aylmer lakes, on June 25. At this time the males were 

 still white, but the females had assumed the brown summer plumage.^ 

 In the National Museum are specimens from Fort Anderson taken 

 in February, 1863; from Fort Rae, January 28, 1863; and from the 

 Arctic coast east of Fort Anderson, taken by the Eskimo in July, 

 1865. The bird catalogue records also skins from Fort Resolution, 

 Fort Rae, and Anderson River. Specimens from Cape Bathurst and 

 Baillie Island, taken in June and July, 1901, probably by a whaler, 

 were identified by Dr. A. K. Fisher, of the Biological Survey, in 

 March, 1902. 



Lagopus leucurus Swains, and Rich. White-tailed Ptarmigan. 



The white-tailed ptarmigan occurs on the alpine summits of the 

 Rocky Mountains throughout nearly their entire length. 



A young man who passed the winter of 1903— t on Liard River a 

 few miles above its mouth told me that among some ptarmigan 

 brought in by the natives he noticed a very small one that was entirely 

 white. This must have been a white-tailed ptarmigan. 



This species was first described from specimens taken by Drum- 

 mond " on the Rocky Mountains in the fifty-fourth parallel," prob- 

 ably in the Jasper House region. Four specimens from this region 

 are mentioned, and another is said to have been taken on the same 

 chain 9 degrees farther north. ^ Ross listed the species as occurring 

 in the mountains of the Mackenzie River region north to La Pierre 

 House, and as having been collected at Fort Simpson.^ A specimen 

 in winter plumage, taken in the Nahanni Mountains to the westward 

 of Fort Simpson, and which is probably the one alluded to, is still 

 in the National Museum. Ross recorded also one collected at La 

 Pierre House.^ Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway describe one in winter 

 plumage from Fort Halkett, on Liard River.^ 



Pedioecetes phasianallus (Linn.). Sharp-tailed Grouse. 



The distribution of this grouse in the region now under considera- 

 tion is nearly coextensive with the forest, though the bird is absent 

 or very rare on its northern border. It breeds throughout this 

 range, but to some extent is migratory. 



« Expl. in Far North, p. 261, 1898. 



^ Dowling, from MacKinlay's notes, Ottawa Nat., VII, p. 109, 1893. 



<^ Fauna Boreali-Americana, II, pp. 356, 357, 1831. 



'^Nat. Hist. Rev., II (second ser.), p. 284, 1862. 



^Can. Nat. and Geol., VI, p. 443, 1861. 



f Hist. N. A. Birds, Land Birds, III, p. 464, 1874. 



