272 Mr. G. E. U. "Burrctt-Hamilton on 



Dr. Leonhard Stejneger'^ who has produced the latest and 

 most complete account of the birds of Kamchatka as a 

 whole. His memoir is, I believe, the only publication of 

 the kind in the English language. It is therefore to his 

 'Birds of Kamchatka' that I have referred for information 

 or for the elucidation of any doubtful questions, and I 

 have also found it convenient (with some exceptions) to 

 follow his system of nomenclature, although I fear it will 

 not commend itself to all naturalists of the Old World. 



When Dr. Stejneger wrote his work, he had records of 

 the occurrence of 175 species or subspecies of birds on the 

 mainland of Kamchatka. Practically none of these are 

 occasional visitants, so that that number may be taken as 

 representing with fair accuracy the true avifauna of the 

 country. The total is little affected hj the few additions 

 which I was able to make to it, since, of these, two, viz. 

 Mareca americana and Heteractitis incanus, are American 

 species. They are already known, it is true, from the 

 western side of Bering Sea, the former from a single 

 specimen, the latter as a regular summer visitor to, and 

 possible breeder on, the Commander Islands; but it is likely 

 that they are only occasional or accidental visitors to the 

 Asiatic mainland. A third. Accentor montane llus, seems to 

 be an addition to the group of those Palsearctic summer 

 birds which, although migrating annually north-eastward to 

 the western and probably reaching even the eastern shores 

 of Bering Strait, do not habitually occur in Kamchatka, for 

 my bird was obtained in a quite natural locality on the 

 island of Karaginski, on the very north-eastern boundary of 

 the peninsula. The fourth, CEdemia carbo, is a bird previously 

 known from the Japanese area : it is a pity that my single 

 specimen (for which I am indebted to Mr. Jacobleff, of 

 Petropavlovsk) is undated. The fifth, Cepphus snowi, may 

 represent an annual summer visitant, if, as has been sug- 

 gested by Dr. Stejuegerf, it be found that this, the Kuril- 



* " Results of Ornithological Exploratioas iu the Commander Islands 

 and iu Kamtschatka," being Bull. No. i'9 of the U. S. Nat. Mus. (1885;. 



t "The Birds of the Kuril Islands," Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. no. 1144, 

 1898, p. 272. 



