332 University of California Publications in Z cology  [VouL. 24

Provincial Museum, Victoria, British Columbia, twenty-seven speci-
mens from Lake Atlin, including nine summer males and eight summer
females, and a male and female from Anaham Lake.

Island specimens of alexandrae (summer males), compared with
lagopus from the Yukon and Kowak regions, are darker colored and
with smaller and differently shaped bill. (The bill difference has
been figured by Clark, 1910, p. 53.) Color is darkest in specimens
from Prince of Wales Island. Atlin birds and Nine-mile Mountain
birds are essentially alike, and are intermediate in color between
lagopus of the interior and alexandrae from the islands; the average
is nearer to alexandrae. The pill in size and shape is just as in alex-
andrae. Females from Atlin and Nine-mile Mountain differ from
Kowak and Yukon birds in bill characters as do the males, and also
in color. They are not of darker and richer browns, as might be
expected, but present a duller, grayer appearance. In the northern
lagopus the feathers above and below are broadly edged with bright
hazel; in the southern birds these edgings are narrow and dull. On
the basis of these comparisons I feel justified in extending the range
of alexandrae eastward from the coast, at the north to Lake Atlin,
at the south to Nine-mile Mountain and Anaham Lake. There is no
question as to the difference of these southern mainland birds from
lagopus of northern Alaska and the interior.

It is of interest to note in wlerandrae the frequent presence of black
shafts on the primaries, sometimes on secondaries and greater coverts.
This character has been considered an important feature of the New-
foundland subspecies (ZL. 1. allent), as in the ‘‘key to the American
subspecies of Lagopus lagopus’? published by Clark (loc. cit, 7. 549),
but obviously it cannot be used as a feature characteristic of that race
alone. In an immature female from Prince of Wales Island (no.
31343, August 27), which has acquired the winter flight feathers, not
only are primaries and secondaries with distinct black shafts, but there
are large, tear-shaped spots of black near the tips of all the primaries
and most of the secondaries. Furthermore, the primaries have a blaek
‘freckling’ over much of their surface, and the greater coverts are also
marked with black though to a lesser degree.