Recent Ornitholugical Publications. 105 



sorry we have not here space to comment upon as we think it 

 deserves. Besides some others that are supposed to have oc- 

 curred within the limits of the province, our author includes 

 140 species in his catalogue ; but of these last some few seem to 

 us to have been inserted on slender evidence. Independently 

 of the importance which naturally attaches to the fauna of the 

 most northern part of continental Europe, some of our country- 

 men may feel interested in the district, being one that was par- 

 tially explored by the late Mr. John Wolley, whose authority is 

 many times quoted by the author. Pastor Sommerfelt we are 

 glad to see confirms a view we had long taken, namely, that HH. 

 Malm and Schrader were somewhat precipitate in positively an- 

 nouncing that certain birds, particularly some of the rarer Wa- 

 ders, breed on the dismal peninsula which separates the Tana and 

 Varanger Fjords. Though we cannot but congratulate our author 

 on the promotion to a better living and a less inhospitable cli- 

 mate, which we understand he has lately obtained, we must still 

 look upon the removal of the Gilbert White of the Arctic Circle 

 as a loss to ornithology. 



6. American. 

 " Some Account of the Petrel " *, by the Rev. John Am- 

 brose, contains a statement, rather remarkable perhaps, but one 

 which we have no reason to think erroneous, that these birds dig 

 their holes in the ground for themselves, using the bill for a 

 pickaxe, and throwing the loose earth behind them very rapidly 

 with their webbed and shovel-like feet, kicking with each foot 

 alternately. Unfortunately the author does not say to which 

 species of Thalassidroma the subject of his observations belongs. 

 We believe that hitherto the mode of excavation adopted by the 

 Petrels was only surmised : Mr. Ambrose seems to have seen it 

 actually practised. 



kelte Bemaerkninger angaaende endel af disse. Ved Chr. Sommerfelt, 

 Sogneprsest til Nsesseby. CEfvers. af K. Vetensk. Akad. Forhandlingar, 

 1861, pp. 67-90. 



* Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science. Hali- 

 fax, N.S., vol. ii. part 1. pp. 34-37, 



