1 62 Cooke, Labrador Bird Notes. ^ ^""^ 



L/Vpril 



LABRADOR BIRD NOTES. 



BY WELLS W. COOKE. 



More than a century ago Cartwright lived at Sandwich Bay on 

 the eastern coast of Labrador and left a journal which contains 

 many notes on the arrival and departure of the birds. Scarcely 

 any migration notes on the birds of this district have been pub- 

 lished during all these subsequent years. The coast has been 

 visited by various ornithologists — Coues, Turner, Stearns, 

 Bigelow, Townsend, and Allen — but these men arrived there in 

 the early summer after the close of spring migration and left too 

 early in the fall to note more than the beginning of the return 

 movement. Hence while the birds have been studied dvu-ing the 

 breeding season, but scant records have been made of their arri\'al 

 and departure. 



In the fall of 1912 Mr. Clarence Birdseye, of New York City, 

 went to Labrador as resident manager for a fox farming company. 

 The winter of 1912-13 was spent at Battle Harbor. The following 

 summer a permanent site for the fox farm was selected near Sand- 

 wich Bay, and the two following winters were spent at this place. 

 During each winter long trips were made by dog sledge up and 

 down the coast, and each summer he was absent for a few weeks 

 while making a trip to New York City. Several years of field work 

 for the U. S. Biological Survey had given Mr. Birdseye an excel- 

 lent training for accurate observation, and during his residence in 

 Labrador he has made copious notes on the bird life. He has 

 turned over all these notes to me with a request that I publish the 

 more interesting records. It must be understood, however, that 

 watching the birds was a mere incident in a life filled full with 

 exacting duties in other lines and that, therefore, the bird notes 

 are not so numerous as his inclinations would have prompted. 



The additions to the list of the birds of eastern Labrador are: 

 Chen hyperboreus hyperboreus, Zenaidura macroura carolincnsis, 

 Mniotilta varia, and Dendroica virens, while the second records on 

 this coast were obtained for Marila marila, Branta bcrnida leuco- 

 gastra, Dendroica cestiva OBstiva, and Regulus calendula calendula. 



