Vol 'i9U Vm ] Correspondence. 517 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Cooke's ' Distribution and Migration of North American 

 Shorebirds.' 



Editors op ' The Auk' : — 



Dear Sirs: — 

 I feel it my duty to call attention to some rather important omis- 

 sions in the list of sources for Prof. W. W. Cooke's valuable and for 

 the most part admirable report on the ' Distribution and Migration of 

 North American Shorebirds,' issued as Bulletin No. 35 of the Biological 

 Survey (1910). This report contains the statement by the Chief of the 

 Survey that " a knowledge of the summer and winter abodes of the several 

 species and of the routes they take in migration is essential to intelligent 

 legislation in their behalf, and, accordingly, all the known facts in regard 

 to this part of their life history are here brought together " (the italics are 

 mine); and the author, Prof. Wells W. Cooke, states that " the data on 

 the breeding and wintering of the shorebirds has been collected from all 

 available printed sources," as well as from other sources named. The 

 author's statement as to the dates of migration is that they " have been 

 obtained principally from the migration schedules sent in by the several 

 hundred observers in the United States and Canada, who for a quarter 

 of a century have contributed to the Biological Survey spring and fall 

 reports of their observations." It seems natural to infer that in the case 

 of the migration data, as with the breeding and wintering, the printed 

 sources would be consulted. 



Now, without attempting a thorough investigation of the field, I find 

 that three publications of some, importance seem to have entirely escaped 

 the attention of the compiler. These are ' The Birds of Essex County, 

 Massachusetts,' by Charles W. Townsend, Nuttall Ornithological Club, 

 1905; ' The Birds of the Cambridge Region,' by William Brewster, Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club, 1906; and ' Birds of Labrador,' by C. W. Townsend 

 and Glover M. Allen, Boston Society of Natural History, 1907. It may 

 seem almost incredible that these three publications, which must be 

 recognized as absolutely authoritative in their respective fields, could have 

 been overlooked, but an examination of the report proves conclusively 

 that such is the case. A consultation of Townsend and Allen's < Birds 

 of Labrador,' for instance, would have informed Professor Cooke that the 

 Northern Phalarope is a common summer resident in Labrador and breeds 

 along the entire coast and that Turner's Ungava Bay record is by no means 

 the only one for the peninsula, Audubon, Low, Bigelow, and Spread- 

 borough having found the bird there, as well as Townsend and Allen. 

 Mr. Brewster's ' Birds of the Cambridge Region,' too, would have furnished 

 in its record of Feb. 13, 1890, an earlier date for the Woodcock's arrival 



