ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 215 



themselves to the sand beaches and surf margins about the islands 

 for a few weeks, when they take flight by the 1st or 5th of Septem- 

 ber and disappear until the opening of the new season. It is a 

 most devoted and fearless parent, and will flutter, in feigned distress, 

 around by the hour, uttering a low, piping note, shoukl one approach 

 near to its nest. It makes a sound ridiculously like the cry of our 

 tree frogs, and I searched in consequence unavailingly for several 

 weeks, deceived by the call of this bird, for the presence of such a 

 reptile.^ 



13. Limosa uropygialis. White-rumped Godwit. 



This wader is a mere chance visitor, never breeding here. It comes 

 in a straggling manner early in May, and passes northward over the 

 islands, hardly stopping on the way. It reappears toward the end of 

 August, going south, in flocks of a dozen to fifty, making then, as 

 before, scarcely an appreciable visit. 



14. Heteroscelus incanus. Wandering Tattler. 



This bird is also migratory, and does not breed here. It comes 

 every year early in June, and subsequently reappears toward the end 

 of July, wlien I again observed it. It may be obtained on the rocky 

 beaches, where it flits at the surf wash, shy and quiet. 



15. Numenius borealis. Eskimo Curlew. 



I never saw but the single specimen, which I shot and preserved, 

 on the seal islands while up there ; but the natives assured me that 

 some years, and quite often, it appears in large flocks during the fall. 

 This one was procured by me in June, 1872, on St. Paul Island. 



16. Philacte canagica. Emperor Goose, 



This goose of the great Yukon River gets over here by mistake, I 

 fancy, for the flock of which I witnessed the capture landed on St. 

 Paul Island so exhausted that the natives ran the birds down in open 

 chase over the grass. I found the flesh of Pli ilacta, contrary to report, 

 free from any unpleasant flavor, and in fact very good. The objec- 

 tionable quality is only skin deep, and may be got rid of by the least 

 care when the cook prepares it for the table. 



1 When I was collecting this bird I took it to be a well-defined Tringa maritima, 

 and did not suppose for an instant that it was an nndescribed species to the avi- 

 fauna of both the Old World and the New. Had I thought seriously of it, however, 

 I might have had my suspicions aroused then, and hence given it still more atten- 

 tion, so that my large series of specimens might have embraced the autumn or 

 perfected fall plumage, and 1 would also have secured many nests rather than the 

 single one which 1 did get. My old friend, Dr. Elliott Coues, was the first to dis- 

 cover the originality of this new sandpiper, though he was very closely followed by 

 that excellent authority on Limicoline birds, J. E. Harting, F. L. S., etc., of London, 

 to whom Professor Baird sent one of my specimens of 1872, also thinkmg it to be 

 T. maritima. A curious fact, however, is the remarkably restricted range which 

 this strongly built bird enjoys in Alaska. It has been seen nowhere except on 

 these Pribilof Islands and on "St. Matthew, 200 miles to the north of them, where 

 in 1874 I saw large numbers, breeding as they do here. I did not see one on St. 

 Lawrence, again to the northward, 180 miles from St. Matthew Island, and it has 

 never been detected on the mainland or the islands of the Aleutian chain, the pen- 

 insula, or northwest coast, inclusive, although that country has been scoured 

 over thoroughly by naturalists and collectors during the last fifteen years; there- 

 fore, unless it is found and \viuters on the large islands of the Commander group, 

 700 miles to the westward of the Pribilofs, I believe that its restriction as above 

 defined is only paralleled by the square-mile limit of distributiou peculiar to sev- 

 eral species of South American humming birds. 



