Vol. XXXVIII 

 1920 



Hanna, New Birds for the Pribilofs. Z5o 



plexing question regarding the avifauna was settled. The American teal 

 was recorded in 1898 but no specimens were collected. Subsequently it 

 was found that the European form was frequently found in the Aleutian 

 Islands and it was a question whether the bird seen on St. George by Wil- 

 liam Palmer in 1890 had not been this. Further complications entered 

 into the case in 1914, when Mr. Edward A. Preble and I collected a female 

 and her unfledged young on St. Paul Island. They could not be identified 

 as the one or the other species. But on May 10, 1917, a fine male of the 

 American form was secured on St. George Island. Then when the Euro- 

 pean was found we knew definitely that both species migrate through the 

 islands. But until some way is found to distinguish the females of the 

 two forms it will not be known which one stopped on St. Paul to nest in 

 1914. 



Haematopus bachmanii Audubon. Black Oyster-catcher. — An 

 adult male of this strange bird was shot on the beach of St. George Island, 

 January 12, 1917. Why it should have come up here in the middle of the 

 winter cannot be stated; it is another instance of the peculiar movements 

 of birds in this region. Other species have done the same thing. The 

 Aleutian Sandpiper goes north regularly in the winter and has been se- 

 cured on the Islands several times. Once it was found on the drift ice. 

 The Aleutian Song Sparrow came to St. George in the winter of 1913-14. 

 It is possible that these birds arrived in the fall and had remained until 

 they were secured later in the year but it hardly seems possible that so 

 striking a form as Haematopus would have escaped detection by sharp 

 native eyes for very long. 



There is good reason to suspect that this species has been shot on St. 

 George Island before. One native told me he had given a bird like it to 

 a Doctor Mills several years earlier but that it had spoiled before being 

 prepared as a specimen. 



Numenius tahitiensis (Gmelin). Bristle-thighed Curlew. — A 

 female bristle-thighed curlew was taken on St. George Island, May 26, 

 1917. 



Although the Eskimo Curlew has been collected on the Pribilofs and 

 the Hudsonian has been reported as having been seen this is the first bird 

 of the genus which has come to my notice during my residence there. It 

 is not likely that either species visits the place except as it may accident- 

 ally get out of its regular line of flight. 



Archibuteo lagopus sancti-johannis (Gmelin). American Rough- 

 legged Hawk. — One specimen, unsexed, was secured on St. George Is- 

 land in the fall of 1917, by Mr. C. E. Crompton of the U. S. Bureau of 

 Fisheries. He has kindly consented to the record being included in this 

 list. 



Large hawks are particularly difficult to secure in the arctic tundra 

 country because of the absence of cover for stalking. They have been 

 seen several different times on the Pribilofs, both in spring and fall, during 



