Vol.XXVIIJ Henshaw, Migration of the Pacific Plover. 253 



migrating shore birds sojourn on them until advancing summer 

 prepares the mainhind for their occupancy. This conjecture is 

 to some extent supported by the statement by Elliott that a few 

 straggling plover land on the Pribilofs in April, or early in May, 

 on their way north to breed, but never remain long. 



Breeding range of the Golden Plover.— ^Yithout doubt the chief 

 breeding ground of the Pacific Plover is eastern Siberia, but a con- 

 siderable number breed on the American coast of Bering Sea from 

 the vicinity of Bristol Bay (where taken by McKay at Xushagak, 

 June, 1881) to near Bering Straits. The plover breeding on 

 Kotzebue Sound, north of the Straits, is dominicus (Grinnell), as 

 also is the one breeding at Point Barrow (Murdock). Apparently 

 fulvns does not breed at all in the interior of Alaska, these regions 

 being occupied solely by dominicus. It concerns us to note in pass- 

 ing that, unless Palmen is mistaken in his identification, dominicus, 

 not content with its wide habitat in the interior of Alaska, crosses 

 the Straits, and breeds on the Chukchi Peninsula.^ Thus the sum- 

 mer ranges of the two forms actually inosculate, the Asiatic form 

 crossing to America and the American form crossing into Asia — 

 an apparent anomaly in the case of geographic forms. 



Hawaiian Plover breed in Alaska. — It is of course impossible to 

 absolutely identify the Pacific Plovers breeding on the coast of 

 Alaska Avith the winter visitors to Hawaii, yet there are certain facts 

 tending to show that they are the same. (1) It is to be noted 

 that of the winter visitors to the Hawaiian Islands not one is an 

 exclusively Asiatic species. (2) The form of the Wandering 

 Tatler which regularly migrates to and from the Islands is not the 

 Asiatic form brevipes but the American form minor. (3) There 

 is evidence that the Bristle-thighed Curlew, also a winter visitor 

 to the islands, breeds in Alaska, while it is not known to breed in 

 Asia. As the two last named birds, which breed exclusively in 

 America so far as known at present, regularly winter in the islands, 

 it is a fair inference, in the lack of evidence to the contrary, that the 

 plover and turnstone, as also the other waders which winter casually 

 in the islands, as the Sanderling, Pectoral Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed 

 Sandpiper, Jack Snipe, Knot and others, also come from Alaska 

 and not from Asia. 



> Palmgn, Vega-Exped. Vetensk. lak-t., Vol. V, 1887, p. 342-348; also Stejneger 

 Auk, 1888, pp. 308-310. 



