THE IBIS. 



FOURTH SERIES. 



No. IV. OCTOBER 1877. 



XXXIV. — List of Birds observed in Smith Sound and in the 

 Polar Basin during the Arctic Expedition of \^7 '6-7 Q. By 

 H. W. Feilden. 



In tlie following notes I have confined myself to an enume- 

 ration of the various species of birds met with by the recent 

 Arctic Expedition in Smith Sound and northward, between 

 the seventy-eighth and eighty-third degrees of north latitude. 

 All of the birds noted are well-known arctic forms ; and the 

 chief interest lies in the record of their great northern exten- 

 sion in the western hemisphere. The only other part of the 

 globe lying within nearly the same parallels of latitude with 

 which we are well acquainted is Spitsbergen; and though 

 that group of islands has been frequently visited by accom- 

 plished and painstaking naturalists, yet the number of species 

 of birds, including stragglers, at present known to have oc- 

 curred there is under thirty. Were I to include in this list 

 species recorded by Dr. Bessels * from Thank-God Harbour, 

 not met with by me, the list of the avifauna of Smith Sound 

 and Spitsbergen would be about numerically equal, thus ac- 



* Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie : Paris, 1875. 



SER. IV. VOL. I. 2f 



