1610 The Zoologist — April, 1869. 



inhabited countries, perhaps, on the face of the globe, where the 

 naturaHst gets less assistance in the oological department than in 

 Newfoundland. The whole and sole occupation of the settlers on the 

 north-west coast is fishing and furring, — the former in summer and 

 the latter in winter, — and upon their success entirely depends the 

 stock of provisions they will be enabled to obtain, by barter with the 

 traders, for the long period of nine months, when no vessels visit the 

 unsafe harbour of Cow Head. Of course the postal arrangements 

 there are not exactly A 1 — never exceeding one delivery a day, and 

 this at intervals of from one month to six weeks in June, July, and 

 August, and usually not at all between the first of September and 

 1st of the following June. During the nesting season the assistance 

 of a man worth anything could scarcely be obtained under a sovereign 

 a day, and then, for want of knowledge of those birds not used as food, 

 he may bring you a lot of eggs unknown and unidentified, and conse- 

 quently worthless. My plan was probably better : I offered a fair 

 reward for all eggs with which I was tolerably familiar; and although 

 I got but iiiv>', 1 ran a far less risk of paying for worthless articles. 

 Although I am answerable for all statements in these " Notes," except 

 when otherwise expressly stated, my friend Prof Newton — than whom 

 no one is more competent — has kindly undertaken to look through 

 the list previously to publication, for the purpose of calling my atten- 

 tion to any passages which may require further verification or particu- 

 larizing, and thereby enhance their value. I have much pleasure in 

 addressing these "Notes" to Mr. Spencer F. Baird, of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, and Mr. G. N. Lawrence, of New York, in 

 remembrance of their kindness to me during my stay in the United 

 States. The classification and nomenclature of the authors of 

 " Birds of North America" has been adopted in the following list. 



Falconid^. 



Pigeon Hatvk (Falco columbarius, Linn.) — This beautiful little 

 hawk, so closely resembling the merlin [F. JEsalon), is a summer 

 migrant to Newfoundland, and is tolerably common : its food consists 

 chiefly of small birds, especially some of the smaller species of 

 Tringa;, which abound on the coast in the fall of the year. Since my 

 return I have compared specimens of this species with others of 

 F. /Esalon, and, although 1 cannot find any material or reliable 

 difference in fiize, the species are easilv separated by examining the 

 tails. Both sexes in F. columbarius have fuur distinct black bars — 



