1926]  Swarth: Birds and Mammals from the Atlin Region 135

Biological Survey, at Bennett, June 9, 1903, made it a fair presump-
tion that this was the case. We found no nest, but on June 30 we
collected a brood of six young, just able to fly; the nest must have
been close by. The young birds, huddled together in a spruce thicket,
were being fed by one parent, which escaped. This was at the head
of Cafion Creek, altitude 4000 feet, in a sparsely wooded mountain
valley, close to the upper limit of upright timber. The young birds
were extremely noisy ; it was the incessant squalling for food that drew
our attention, from a distance. Their stomachs were well filled, mostly
with insect remains, including some small Coleoptera; in one stomach
there were parts of a very young ptarmigan chick, including the bill.
Three of the young were preserved by Brooks, three by Swarth
(nos. 44897-44899).

On July 28 an adult male (no. 44900) was collected at the head of
Otter Creek (about 3500 feet altitude). This bird is in the midst of
the annua! molt. Above and below the old feathers are extremely
pale colored. The underparts are almost pure white, the old feathers
having lost every vestige of the dusky vermiculations. Such markings
show plainly enough on the new breast feathers, just coming in. The
stomach held insect remains. The species was observed only on these
two occasions.

A notable feature of the shrikes in juvenal plumage is their gray
coloration. In the freshly acquired first winter plumage there is a
decidedly brown tone both above and below, but, save for the wing
markings, none of this appears in the juvenal stage. This plumage
is mostly clear gray, slightly darker on the dorsum, and finely
vermiculated below.

Through the courtesy of Dr. Louis B. Bishop there are available
from his collection 57 specimens of Lanius borealis, about equally
divided between eastern and western localities. In this museum there
are twenty-six skins, fourteen western and twelve eastern. From the
Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, I was able to borrow two adult males
from the east side of Hudson Bay. These two, with one from Magdalen
Island, in the Bishop collection, are the only breeding birds I have
seen from eastern localities.

The subspecies invictus (Grinnell, 1900, p. 54), described from the
Kowak River, Alaska, was characterized as of larger size, paler colora-
tion dorsally, and with the white markings greater in extent, as com-
pared with eastern birds. I can distinguish a slight average difference
in size (see table), and, in some specimens, in the color characters also.