274 COLUMBID^E. 



Appendix to the Narrative of the second voyage by Sir John 

 Ross, says of this Pigeon, — " A young male bird flew on 

 board the Victory during a storm, Avhilst crossing Baffin's 

 Bay in latitude 73^ N. on the 31st of July, 1829. It has 

 never before been seen beyond the sixty-second degree of 

 north latitude ; and the circumstance of our having met with 

 it so far to the northward, is a singular and interesting fact." 

 Dr. Richardson, in the Appendix to Captain Back's Narra- 

 tive, referring to this occurrence of the Passenger Pigeon, 

 remarks, " that it flew on board the Victory during a storm, 

 and must have strayed from a great distance. The wind, as 

 we find by a reference to Sir John Ross's Narrative, blew 

 from the north-east at the beginning of the gale, shifting 

 afterwards to the eastward. As the Victory was to the north- 

 ward of the island of Disco at the time, if the bird came in 

 either of these directions, it must have taken flight from the 

 northern part of Greenland, but it is not likely to have found 

 food on that barren coast." M. Temminck, in the recently 

 published fourth part of his Manual of Birds found in Eu- 

 rope, says, this bird has been taken both in Norway and in 

 Russia. Dr. Fleming, in his History of British Animals, 

 page 145, says, " I have to add the occurrence of a single 

 individual, of a species hitherto unknown, even as a straggler, 

 the Passenger Pigeon, Colmnba migratoria. It Avas shot, 

 while perched on a wall in the neighbourhood of a pigeon- 

 house, at Westhall, in the parish of Monymeal, Fifeshire, 

 the 31 st of December, 1825. The feathers were quite fresh 

 and entire, like those of a wild bird." This species is there- 

 fore included in this History of British Birds. On the sub- 

 ject of American Birds, I may here add, that since the pub- 

 lication of the sixteenth part of this History, which contained 

 the account of our Swallow and Martins, I have been favoured 

 with a letter from Mr. Frederick M'Coy, of Dublin, to the 

 following effect : — " I beg to send you notice of a bird, new 



