NOTES ON AND LIST OF BIRDS AND EGGS COLLECTED IN ARCTIC 



AMERICA, 1861-1866. 



BY 



R. MacFarlane, F. R. G. S., 



Chief Factor Hudson Bay Company.* 



When recently requested bj' President Charles jST. Bell, of Winnipeg, 

 to write a paper on Arctic breeding birds, for publication by the His- 

 torical and Scientific Society of Manitoba, I thought of including therein 

 a similar reference to the collections made in ornithology and oology 

 by the northern officers of the company subsequent to the year 1859, 

 when Mr. Robert Kennicott, an able, amiable, and prematurely cut-off 

 American naturalist, and representative of the Smithsonian Institution 

 at Washington, first appeared on the Mackenzie River. During his three 

 years' sojourn in that quarter he managed to infuse into one and all with 

 whom he had any intercourse more or less of his own ardent, zealous, 

 and indefatigable spirit as a collector; but for want of space, time, and 

 the requisite material I have had to abandon that idea, and must there- 

 fore confine myself to giving a resume of what I was i^ersonally ena- 

 bled to accomplish. I trust, however, that some day an abler hand will 

 take the matter up, in its entirety, and publish a full account of the 

 magnificent contributions to the natural history of the Dominion of 

 Canada obtained by the exertions of Hudson Bay officers throughout 

 the vast territories covered by the fur trade and commercial operations 

 of their old company. Among those of their number who hapi^ened to 

 be then, or about that time, stationed in the Mackenzie River district, 

 and who thus rendered very essential service, may be mentioned Messrs. 

 B. R. Ross, James Lockhart, Laurence Clarke, Wm. L. Hardisty, James 

 McDougall, John Reid, C. P. Gaudet, Strachan Jones, J. S. Camsell, 

 Murdo McLeod, James Sibbiston, A. McKenzie, Andrew Flett, W. J. 

 McLean, William Brass and W. C. King. In this connection I would 

 further add that, while the friendly and rather extensive correspondence 

 carried on for years with many of the foregoing by the late eminent and 

 much lamented Prof. Spencer F. Baird,of the Smithsonian, evinced his 

 own deep love for science, it did much to intensify their interest in, and 

 desire to meet more fully perhaps than was otherwise possible, the 

 views and objects of that obliging and well-conducted Institution. 



* Formerly clerk in charge of Fort Audersou, Audersou River, Mackenzie River 

 district, northwest territory of Canada. 



Procccrtinas Na'ioral 'Jlnseani, Vol. XIV- No. 865. 



413 



