54 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vou. 30

Teslin Lake. We left Teslin on the return trip the morning of Septem-
ber 13, reaching Atlin September 15. The trail lies in the lowlands the
whole distance, passing through stretches of spruce, pine, and poplar
woods at intervals, with occasional tracts of open meadow and marsh
land. Rugged mountains enclose Surprise Lake, but beyond that point,
to the northeast, the mountains are left behind and rolling, forested
country stretches in all directions, save for isolated groups of peaks
such as the conspicuous Dawson Peaks (locally known as the Four
Aces) on the British Columbia—Yukon boundary at Lake Teslin.

CARCROSS

This is the Caribou Crossing of former days, now a station on the
White Pass and Yukon Railroad. It is situated at the junction of
Bennett and Tagish lakes, near the north base of White Pass, sixty-
eight miles inland from Skagway. Our limited work here was within
a radius of six or eight miles of the town, and entirely in the lowlands,
as the nearby mountains were inaccessible from the depth of soft,
melting snow with which they were then covered. The valley is clothed
with open woods, poplars and small jack pine mostly, interspersed
with stands of white spruce, and with willow copses in the more
swampy ground. A large slough (with wide margins of exposed mud
in May, filled with water in September) lies but a short distance from
the town, an attraction for water birds of many sorts. A striking
feature of this region is the vast expanse of shifting sand dune country.
The lower end of Lake Bennett is broadly margined with sand dunes,
and as far as we went in the woods to the northward we found similar
sandy mounds covered with forest trees. It is a windy region; during
our stay there were strong winds daily rushing inland through the
White Pass. (For a detailed discussion of the faunistic features of
the region, see Osgood, 1900, pp. 8-12.)

ATLIN

The town of Atlin is on the east shore of Lake Atlin, at an altitude
of 2200 feet. The valley bordering the east side of the lake is forest
covered mostly, but the woods are open and easily traversed. Quaking
aspen, or ‘‘poplar,’’ is the dominant deciduous tree, and almost
unbroken stands of poplar cover miles of territory. White spruce grows
in many places in the lowlands, and in denser stands and over greater
areas on the adjoining mountain sides. The lowland woods are broken