OCCURRENCE OF EUROPEAN BIRDS IN N. S. PIERS. 239 



occurred, and we can no longer, therefore, consider it as a 

 bird found here, although it is quite likely to be taken as an 

 accidental visitor at any time. The occurrence of the 

 Wheatear in North America at all, was formerly thought 

 to be only accidental or occasional, but the bird has since 

 been ascertained to be a regular breeder in our northern 

 regions, although nowheie appearing as a regular migrant 

 on this continent. 



In 1901, Stejneger (loc. cit.) separated the form which 

 breeds in northeast boreal America, under the subspecific 

 name Saxicola cenanthe leucorhoa (Gmel.), the Greenland 

 Wheatear, A. O. U. No. 765a, recognizing the typical Wheat- 

 ear, S. oenanthe cenanthe (Linn.), A. O. U. No. 765, as the 

 form which occurs in the northwestern part of North America 

 as well as in the Eastern Hemisphere. The Greenland 

 Wheatear (the form which might be found accidentally in 

 our own province) breeds regularly in the Arctic zone of 

 North America, from Ellesmere Land and Boothia Penin- 

 sula, east to Greenland and Iceland, and south to northern 

 Ungava, even possibly in part of Quebec. It migrates 

 through the British Isles and France, and winters in western 

 Africa. Chapman (Birds of Eastern North America, 1912, 

 p. 499,) says it is "casual in migration to Keewatin, Ontario, 

 New Brunswick [is "N. B." a typographical error for the 

 old "N. S.," Nova Scotia, of his earlier edition?], Quebec, 

 New York, Beimuda, Louisiana and Cuba." Should this 

 sub-species ever occur here, it must now be considered merely 

 as a casual occurrence of a true North American bird. 



PROC. & TRANS. N. S. INST. Sci., VOL. XIII. TRANS. 16 



