390 Dixon, The Spoon-billed Sandpiper. 



Auk 

 Oct. 



(Hooper, 1853, p. 12). The vessel remained frozen in the ice at 

 this point from October, 1848, until the last of June, 1849. Hooper 

 (1853, pp. 206-207) states " we sailed from Emma's Harbor at the 

 end of June, and proceeded up Behring's Straits, anchoring several 

 times near the Asiatic shore, on which occasions parties of our 

 friends visited the ship. The last point of contact was the Bay of 

 St. Laurence." From this point "we steered for Kotzebue Sound 

 and anchored near Chamisso Island on the 14th of July." Here 

 Lieutenant Hooper started ashore but was called back by the 

 arrival of the Herald, and "both ships' crews were therefore im- 

 mediately set to work to transfer stores and provisions. On the 

 18th the 'Herald' and 'Plover' weighed at an early hour." See- 

 mann (1853, p. 193) states that the Plover was "off Wainwright 

 Inlet on the 25th of July, 1849." She returned from her Arctic 

 cruise and again met the Herald at Kotzebue Sound on September 

 2, 1849. From Simmonds (1852, p. 308) we learn that "the 

 Plover was safely ensconced for the winter of 1849-50 in Kotzebue 

 Sound." 



In looking over the ten species of birds, specimens of which are 

 indicated by Harting as having been obtained on the Choris 

 Peninsula in 1849 by Captain Moore of the Plover (Harting, 1871, 

 p. 114; Grinnell, 1900, p. 66), we find that the list contains no 

 species peculiar to North America. However, we do find that at 

 least two of the species (Spoon-billed Sandpiper and Mongolian 

 Plover) are essentially Asiatic. To the author's knowledge only 

 two other American specimens of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and 

 no other specimen of the Mongolian Plover have been claimed to 

 have been taken in Alaska since 1849. 



The Plover and her crew wintered in 1848^9 and spent the main 

 portion of the breeding season of 1849 along the coast of north- 

 eastern Siberia, the region which has recently been proved to be 

 the main breeding ground of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper (Brooks, 

 1915, p. 382). On the other hand, only four days (July 14-18, 

 1849) were spent at Choris Peninsula, Kotzebue Sound, most of 

 this time being devoted to transferring stores aboard the ships 

 (Hooper, 1853, p. 213). 1 Under the circumstances it would seem 



1 Mr. W. L. Sclater, Editor of ' The Ibis,' was written to in regard to the present condition 

 of Captain Moore's specimen of Eurynorhynchus pygmseus. At his kind solicitation, both 



