Bird-Life in Labrador. 



bor, April 2, 18HO; "Schneider;" presented by Dr. L. Stejneger. Mr. 

 Turner records this as " coastwise and interior especial!}- abundant. Resi- 

 dent and breeds at Fort Chimo." 



I should like to know more of Briinnich's guillemot in Labrador ; also 

 of the so-called "blue gulls" of the inhabitants, who talk of the "fresh- 

 water blue gull " and of the " salt-water blue gull" of which I " never took 

 a specimen," according to the local hunters there, could they have been 

 leucopierus and delawarensis 1 possibly. Another point, I believe that the 

 great black-backed gull and the herring gull lay, respectively, three and 

 four eggs almost if not quite invariably. In Mr. Edward A. Samuel's 

 " Ornithology and Oology of New England," Mr. William Cooper, of Que- 

 bec, is credited with : rough-legged hawk ("breeds in Labrador"), hawk 

 owl ( "breeds in the northern portions of Hudson Bay and Labrador" ), 

 white-winged crossbill ("breeds"), northern phalarope P. hyperboreus 

 ( "common " ), and ring-billed gull L. delauwrensis ( " breeds " ). In an- 

 other place he affirms Audubon's statement relative to the Blackbnrnian 

 warbler, thus : " I saw numbers of this species in the woods of Labrador 

 on the seventeenth of June, but could not discover the nest." 



From the above references it will be seen at a glance that it is highly 

 probable that a further careful research into the bird fauna of Labrador 

 will reveal man}- treasures and rarities hitherto unlooked for in so arctic a 

 climate. As a rule birds are found where Summer is. While, then, the 

 warmth of Summer o'erspreads, even for a short time, the otherwise frigid 

 climate of arctic North America, of Labrador, at least, birds swarm as in 

 more favored regions. You will see that I have bounded Labrador by the 

 bird fauna of the land north and west, and of the water east and south. 

 The interior of the peninsula remains yet to be explored. In these da}-s 

 it is as much as one's life is worth to give a bird a scientific (Latin) name, 

 and though I have given, generall}*, only the English names of the species 

 here they will hardly be misunderstood I think. 



