Recent Literature. 109 



African Finch (Crithar/ra hutyracea) at South Scituate,Mass., and of a speci- 

 men of the European Goldfinch {Carduelis elerjans) near Boston in 1878. 

 Both of the latter, however, are stated to have been undoubtedly escaped 

 cage-birds, and are not considered as additions to our fauna. About four 

 pages are devoted to the history of the breeding of the Loggerhead Shrike 

 {Lanius lurlooicianuti) near Bangor, Me. and Rutland, Vt., — a fuller and 

 more detailed account than had previously appeared. These " Notes " 

 form a convenient and connected record of recent discoveries in relation 

 to many of the rarer New England birds, and add more or less that is new 

 respecting some of them. — J. A. A. 



Kumlikn's Contributions to thk Natural History of Arctic 

 America.* — Nearly fifty pages of Mr. Kumlien's "Contributions" are 

 devoted to the birds observed. Of the 84 species noted, seven or eight 

 relate to localities not Arctic, being species that visited the ship while off 

 Newfoundland and neighboring points. Of the remainder, only about 

 twenty are land birds. The notes respecting many of the species are 

 quite extended, and embrace many points of interest. The Stonechat 

 is given as " one of the commonest land birds of Disko Island, Green- 

 land," where other birds are spoken of as common, and as breeding, though 

 rare, along both shores of Cumberland Sound and on the west coast of 

 Davis Strait. The European Ring-necked Plover [jEgialids hiaticula), 

 previously reported by Captain H. W. Feilden from Buchanan Strait, 

 and " long known as a common bird of the Greenland coast," was found 

 not rare on the shores of Cumberland Sound. Larits gkmcescens is stated 

 to be " (juite common on the upper Cumberland waters, Avhere they breed," 

 its first record on the Atlantic coast, but one well substantiated, resting, 

 as we are informed, on specimens received at the National Museum. 

 The Avocet {Recuroirostra americana) is confidently entered in the 

 list, on the authority of a drawing "made by a wild Eskimo"; but we 

 fancy many ornithologists will require more tangible evidence before ac- 

 cepting this species as a bird of Arctic America. A Crane, recorded as 



" Grus ? {^voh2i\Ay frater cuius)" is said to be "quite common in some 



localities," and to breed " in Kingwah and Kingnite Fjords in Cumberland, 

 in Exeter Sound and Home Bay on the west coast of Davis Straits," and 

 to be especially common in spring at Godhavn. If not Grus canadensis, 

 previously recorded as a bird of Greenland, there seems little probability 

 of its being G. /rater cuius (cf. this number of the Bulletin, p. 123). Tlie 

 Purple Sandpiper {Tringa suharquata) is given as "not uncommon in 

 North Greenland. Eggs were procured at Christianshaab, Greenland, 

 through the kindness of Governor Edgar Fencker. Not observed on any 

 part of Cumberland that I visited." The eggs here mentioned were re- 



* Contributions to the Natural History of Arctic America, made in Connection 

 with the Howgata Polar Expedition, 1877 - 78. By Ludwig Kumlien, Naturalist 

 of the Expedition. Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 15, 1879. Birds, pp. 69-105. 



