ORNITHOLOGIST 



— AND — 



OOLOGIST. 



$1.00 per 

 Annum. 



FRANK B. WEBSTER, PUBLISHER. 



Established, March, 1875. 



Single Copy 

 10 Cents. 



VOL. XII. 



BOSTON, MASS., MARCH, 1887. 



No. 3. 



An Ornithologist's Summer in 

 Labrador. 



BY M. ABBOTT FRAZAR. 



(Concluded from page 20.) 



Tringa miniUilla, Least Sandpiper. Small 

 flocks to be seen all through the summer. 



Totanus meJanoIeiicus^ Greater yellow legs. 

 A pair seen at Esquimaux Point ; had evidently 

 settled down for the breeding season ; saw them 

 several days in succession, and they made the 

 top of a certain dead spruce a common nesting 

 place. 



Actitis macularia, Spotted Sandpiper. Com- 

 mon, and breeding all along the coast where- 

 ever I visited. 



Nuinenius hitdsonicus, Hudsonian Curlew. 

 Not a rare August migrant. 



Arenaria interpres, Turnstone. One flock ob- 

 served at Esquimaux Point late in May, evi- 

 dently migrating. 



Bonasa canadensis, Canada Grouse. A reg- 

 ular, though not a common resident. Prob- 

 ably if I had been back among the forests I 

 would have found them common. 



Bonasa umbellus. The "Birch Partridge'' is 

 a well recognized bird all along the Labrador 

 coast up to the most easterly point I reached, 

 but seems to be not as common as the preced- 

 ing species. The nearest I came to obtaining a 

 specimen was seeing the tail of one tacked on 

 the wall of a house at Esquimaux Point. It 

 was of a very reddish brown color, very nuich 

 more so than any I ever saw in Massachusetts 

 or New Brunswick, or in any of the Boston 

 markets. 



Lagojnts albus, Willow Ptarmigan. In sum- 

 mer this bird seems to retreat to the interior to 

 breed, and visits the coast regularly every win- 

 ter. The preceding winter they were unusually 

 abundant about Esquimaux Point, far more so 

 than usual. People killed them in their yards, 

 on their doorsteps and about everywhere. Two 



Indians I saw were said to have killed over 

 eight hundred during the winter. But from 

 all the evidence I could gather, this unusual 

 flight did not extend nuich to the eastward of 

 Musquarro ; the natives recognize this as the 

 White Partridge. Another species which is 

 found about Cape Whittle in winter and which 

 they call the Mountain Partridge, is a smaller 

 bird and is said never to get pure white. It is 

 a recognized species by all the inhabitants 

 about there and is probably Lagopus welchi, as 

 Mr. Jones with whom I lived at Cape Whittle, 

 and who was a very reliable man, told me that 

 several years befoi-e, he was on the shore of the 

 straits one day in early winter, and that flock 

 after flock of these birds were flying in from 

 across the water and that they lit upon the first 

 land they could reach, evidently being greatly 

 fatigued. 



Haliceetus lencocephalus, Bald Eagle. Not a 

 rare summer resident, as I heard of about six 

 pair that bred at dift'erent places along the coast 

 and always in trees; saw one bird myself at 

 Cape Whittle. 



Falco peregrinus anatum. Duck Hawk. Saw 

 three specimens at Esquimaux Point late in 

 May, one of which fell my prey. 



Falco coliimharius, Pigeon Hawk. Seen at 

 Esquimaux Point on May 18th. None seen un- 

 til my return in September, when a pair ac- 

 conipanied by their young were haunting 

 around the woods a short distance from the 

 house. 



Pandion huliaetus carolinensis, American Os- 

 prey. Common, and breeding all along the 

 coast as far east as Cape Whittle. 



Asio accipitrinus, Short-eared Owl. Although 

 I saw no Owls at all during my stay on the 

 coast, one, probably of this species, was report- 

 ed to me one night at Cape Whittle as flying by 

 the house. The reason I do not pass the species 

 by altogether without mentioning it, is to bring 

 up a circumstance in connection with the Puf- 

 fins which I noticed in their colony near by. I 



Copyright, 1887, by F. H. Carpenter and F. B. Webster. 



