"2 2 2 CoUES, Gdtkes Heligoland, I 



Auk 

 Oct. 



except on the sides of the breast, where there is an encroachment 

 of the pure ash gray of the nape. The top of the head is quite uni- 

 form gray, except anteriorly, where the feathers are bordered with 

 white, producing a distinct squamation. The wings are entirely 

 concolor on their outer surface, and the inner web of the outer 

 tail-feather is wholly pure white. 



The synonymy of JE.Jishcri is as follows : — 



^■Rstrclala fis/icri Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. V, June 26, 18S3, 656 

 (Kadiak, Alaska ; U. S. Nat. Mus.) ; VIII, 1885, 17, 18 (comparison with 

 ^■E. dcfilippicina). — Baird, Brewkr, & Ridgway, Water B. N. Am. II, 



\ 18S4, 396. — CouEs, Key, 2d ed. 18S4, 780. 



yEstrelata /VV/cr/ American Ornithologists' Union, Check-List, 18S6, 

 No. 100. — Ridgway, Man. N. Am. B. 1887, 68. 



f f Fregetta grallaria (nee Procellaria grallaria Vieillot) Nelson, 

 Cruise Corwin in 1881 (1S83), 113 (Aleutian Islands southward). 



GATKE'S HELIGOLAND.! 



BY ELLIOTT COUES. 



There is no Heligoland but Heligoland, and Giitke is its prophet. 

 The name means " holy land," and this island in the North Sea is 

 a sort of Mecca to which all good birds must make their pilgrimage 

 or perish in the attempt. Heligoland may more literally be called 

 the magnetic pole of the bird-world, so irresistibly does it seem to 

 attract birds to deviate from ordinary Zugstrassen (fiight-lines) — 

 either in isolated wanderings from Asia, Africa or America, or in 

 vast mass-migrations that overshadow the land like clouds crossing 

 the skies. Heligoland is the most peculiarly favored, longest 



' Heligoland | as an | Ornithological Observatory | the Result of Fifty Years' 

 Experience | by Heinrich Gatke | [etc., 5 lines] | translated by | Rudolph 

 Rosenstock, M. A. Oxon. | [Vignette and motto] | Edinburgh: David Douglas, 

 ID Castle .Street | 1895 | i vol., roy. 8vo. pp. xii, 599, 2 portraits of author and 

 various figs, in text. 



