222 :jfATDRAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS IX ALASKA. 



to Mr. Tristram to be compared with Earopeau specimens, witli the result of determining that 

 birds secured iu Laplaud, at the same season, were identical with the Alaskan examples. I have 

 made a hasty comparison of my skins with those in the National Museum from Greenland and 

 several Old World localities, and find no dilferences other than individual. 



This species is one of the few which extends its breeding range around the entire northern 

 Polar regions, with the apparent strange exception, however, of the extreme northeastern portion 

 of Siberia. Another remarkable circumstance in the history of this wanderer is the great rarity 

 of its occurrence iu the United States during winter, notwithstanding its comparative abundance 

 iu the northern portions of the continent daring the breeding season. Where these birds pass 

 the winter is one of the numerous ornithological puzzles which still remain to be solved. Single 

 specimens have been taken iu Eastern Maine, New York State, and south to the Bermudas, besides 

 several other United States and Canadian localities in autumn ; but these rare instances do not 

 account for the considerable number of Stone Chats which are found in the north. A possible, 

 but apparently improbable, supposition is that they pass to Europe by the way of Greenland, 

 in autumn, and thence back again during their spring migration. To do this, however, the bird 

 must leave Northern Europe, cross the Atlantic to Greenland, thence to Arctic America, and 

 traverse the entire northern porti >n of our continent to become a common summer resident in 

 Northern Alaska. However, the bird is unknown from the Chukchi Peninsula, though I saw a 

 single skin brought off to the Corwiu from King Island, iu Bering Straits, by a native, in July, 

 188^1, and the next record is from China, northwest of Pekin, and again on the Lower Lena. 

 Ust Zylma and Krasnoyarsk are the easternmost records of its presence in Eastern Asia. The 

 bird is unknown on the Aleutian and other islands in Bering Sea, nor has it been taken south 

 of the Yukon any where in Alaska. 



In some remarks made by Professor Newton upon various Alaskan birds, and this species in 

 liarticular, he assumes that the bird reaches Northwest America by the way of Greenland, and 

 considers that this supposition may, in a measure, indorse Petermaun's suggestion that Green- 

 land extends across the pole north to the coast of Asia and Alaska. The investigations of the 

 several exijloring vessels during the last few seasons in the Arctic have, to a certain extent, 

 disproved this theory, for the Chat arrives at Saint Michaels the last of May, while the lands 

 about the pole are still held by the rigid hand of winter, and are totally unfitted for a bird of 

 this character. 



SiALiA ARCTiCA (Swains.). Mountain Bluebird. 



This species is recorded by Hartlaub from DejJih, Southeastern Alaska, April 20, 21. As this 

 author states that it was seen only at this point, and on these two days, it would seem to be 

 not at all common even in this portion of the Territory ; further north than this it appears to be 

 unknown. 



