The low thickets of the woods are swarming with Tree-sparrows,
Redpolls, Robins, Hooded Sparrows, and the bare plains, a few
yards away, are peopled and vocal with birds to whom a bush is an
abomination. Lap-longspur, Snowbird, Shorelarks, and Pipits are
here soaring and singing, or among the barren rocks are Ptarmigan
in garments that are painted in the patterns of their rocks.
There is one sombre fowl of ampler wing that knows no line - is at
home in the open or in the woods. His sonorous voice has a human
sound that is uncanny; his form is visible afar in the desert and
sinister as a gibbet; his plumage fits in with nothing but the
night, which he does not love. This evil genius of the land is the
Raven of the north. Its numbers increased as we reached the Barrens,
and the morning after the first Caribou was killed, no less than
28 were assembled at its offal.
An even more interesting bird of the woods is the Hooded Sparrow,
interesting because so little known.
Here I found it on its breeding-grounds, a little late for its
vernal song, but in September we heard its autumnal renewal like
the notes of its kinsmen, White-throat and White-crowned Sparrows,
but with less whistling, and more trilled.
