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CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 
HYLOCICHLA NANUS Aud. 
(2.) THE DWARF THRUSH. 
The presence of this species in my list is owing entirely to the identification of Gmelin’s 
Ounalaskan Thrush as this bird by Mr, Ridgway. If Gmelin’s bird was one of these thrushes, as 
the imperfect description may be interpreted to affirm, it occurs there merely as a straggler, for 
since the original record not a specimen has been obtained at Ounalaska, or elsewhere on the 
Aleutian Islands, by any of the numerous naturalists who have visited them. The description is 
so vague and imperfect as given by Gmelin that absolute identification is impossible, and from 
the geographical position of the original locality the chances are equally as favorable for H. alicia 
to occur as for the Dwarf Thrush. 
MERULA MIGRATORIA Linn. Sw. & Rich. 
(3.) THe AMERICAN ROBIN. 
The breeding limit of this bird is restricted to the wooded part of the interior, but it occurs as 
a straggling migrant on the coast of Norton Sound and Bering Straits and a wind-bound visitant 
to the Seal Islands. It is present as a summer resident on Kodiak Peninsula, as shown by skins 
brought me by the Esquimaux. No doubt it is a straggler thence to Northeastern Asia or Chukehi 
land. It also visits the shores of Kotzebue Sound in the course of its migrations, but I do not: 
know of its nesting anywhere near tide-water on this coast. 
It is a pleasant experience for one in a far-off region like this to come across the familiar forms 
known in other days. The sight of this bird gleaning its food about the houses on a frosty spring 
morning in May, carries one’s mind back from sterile arctic scenery to the blossoming orchards, the 
hum of bees, and such other pleasant sounds and sights of nature as go to make up a beautiful 
spring day in lower latitudes. One misses, however, the warbling strain of the blue bird, and the 
cheerless surroundings soon bring the stern reality too closely home. The birds too seem impressed 
with the gloomy surroundings, and I have never heard them utter their notes during the time of 
their visits to the sea-coast. 
In the wooded interior, however, they regain their spirits and rear their young even north of 
the circle, and here their cheering notes enliven the wooded river courses during the long summer 
days, in striking contrast to the silence of a few months earlier when a deathly hush made the 
shadows of the forests a fitting haunt for the wolf and wolverines. 
There is no record of the occurrence of the robin in Northeastern Asia, that I have found, 
although as before mentioned it undoubtedly is a casual visitant to that region. Elliott found 
a single bird wind-bound upon the Seal Islands, beyond which there is no record of its occurrence 
on any of the islands in Bering Sea. 
HESPEROCICHLA NAVIA (Gmel.) Baird. 
(4.) THE VARIED THRUSH. 
This handsome bird equals the robin in its northern range in Alaska, and quite a number of 
skins have been brought me from the northern shore of Norton Sound and from the Kotzebue 
Sound region. The Eskimo have assured me of its range considerably beyond this district, and 
Richardson found it on the Mackenzie River, within the Arctic Circle, where he tells us it arrives 
very soon after the Robin and the Yellow Warbler. It, like the Robin, prefers to nest in the wooded 
country, but unlike the latter it nests at times in the alder clumps close to the shore of Norton and 
Kotzebue Sounds. It is unknown from the islands and Asiatic shore of Bering Sea. 
I have not had the pleasure of studying the life habits of this bird, so have nothing to add in 
this particular, but may say that its habits during the breeding season are but little known, very 
few naturalists having had opportunity to study its nidification, 
