486 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



the island for the last thirty years. It is supposed that the 

 long prevalence of bad weather has driven them from some 

 other island, their proper home. E. L. L. 



Noumea, May 22, 1879. 



Sirs,— At page 375 of 'The Ibis' for 1879, Dr. T. M. 

 Brewer, of Boston, U.S., records that Tringa subarquata has 

 been discovered breeding in the district of Christianshaab, 

 in the Inspectorate of North Greenland. If the circum- 

 stances of the case, as detailed by Dr. Brewer, bear investi- 

 gation, and it is a fact that the Curlew Sandpiper has been 

 found nesting in North Greenland, it is a very astonishing 

 addition to the ornithology of that region. I trust that I may 

 not be deemed hypercritical or ungenerous in suggesting that, 

 if the alleged nesting of the Curlew Sandpiper in North Green- 

 land rests on no stronger evidence than that recorded by Dr. 

 Brewer in ' The Ibis,' it must at any rate be received with 

 caution. The ornithology of the west coast of Greenland, 

 as far north as the district of Upernivik, or, in other words, 

 to nearly the seventy-fourth parallel of north latitude, has 

 received careful investigation by a number of eminent Danish 

 naturalists, both resident and non-resident in Greenland, 

 embracing such well-known names as Fabricius, Holboll, and 

 the Reinhardts. The Curlew Sandpiper has not been recorded 

 by these observers and naturalists, as even an uncommon 

 visitor to the coasts of Greenland ; and now to be told that it 

 is not uncommon as a breeding species in the district of 

 Christianshaab may well excite incredulity. Moreover it may 

 be remarked that the species has never been recognized in 

 Iceland, the Faroe Islands, or on the coast of East Greenland, 

 and is recorded as scarcely more than a straggler along the 

 Atlantic coast of the United States. The breeding-haunts 

 of Tringa subarquata appear to be the tundras of North- 

 western Europe and Northern Asia ; and I should as soon 

 expect to hear of the nesting of Tringa temmincki or Tringa 

 minuta in Greenland as of the Curlew Sandpiper. In thus 

 expressing myself, I do not wish to cast any reflection on Mr. 

 Ludwig Kumlien, who may be a competent observer ; for by 



